Elements of Revolution
by Dragon XD
Summary: Oh you've heard it all before. A ninja goes to the Four Nations and stuff happens over there and back home.
1. Sasuke Ch1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Legend of Korra…or a single share of Facebook, the last part for which I am glad of

Chapter 1: The Boy on the Iceberg

She performed a leg sweep to send a fire whip along the ground and force her attacker to jump into the air. After that, two quick and light bursts of flame that kept him on the defensive, helped keep her out of his sight while she charged forward…and slipped on the patch of half-melted ice that slid her feet out from under her feet. Luckily the girl managed to catch herself on the ground to roll into a crouch and come up in a defensive stance.

With her concentration broken, the imaginary opponent faded from her sights. Korra focused on the more important task of making sure no one noticed her slipup with a few quick glances to take in her surroundings.

_If master Shen saw that, he'd make me do remedial drills for an extra week_, the Avatar told herself.

After seeing that the courtyard was indeed empty, the Avatar let out a sigh of relief. Then she glared at the stupid half-frozen puddle that had nearly knocked her flat on her ass. She bent the liquid back into a full solid again, then picked it up to hurl it into the nearest wall.

Korra groaned. With her Firebending test three weeks away, Korra wasn't worried about her form, the playing field was another story. Firebending in a place that was covered in ice half the time was _not_ a good idea. Those moves were _not _meant to be used on top of such slippery ground. But, she supposed she'd be saying the same thing about Waterbending if the White Lotus had decided to build a compound where the daily temperature wasn't below freezing.

_Maybe I can talk them into laying out a giant carpet or something_, she wondered to herself. At least then she wouldn't be tripping on spontaneously appearing puddles.

With her concentration broken, Korra figured that she wouldn't be getting much more out of her practice session. So she picked herself up to go check on her precious polar bear dog.

When Korra got to the stables and came up to Naga's pen, the Avatar found the giant white mutt just waking up. The trained polar bear dog was a one of a kind mount, the only one in the world that didn't live in the wild and let people ride her. In all honesty, she couldn't understand why others of Naga's kind hadn't been domesticated before.

Okay, Korra understood why no one wanted to mess with the adults. Those things were vicious animals that would tear people in half. But Korra had found Naga as a puppy, and the only thing that had changed about the oversized mongrel over the years was how big she was, how much she ate, and how much of Korra's hair she messed up with that oversized tongue of hers.

"Hey girl, ready for your morning run?" Korra asked before opening the polar bear dog's gate and showing the creature its saddle. Although calling it a 'run' was a little misleading, as Naga needed the same kinds of daily attention as smaller dogs.

A few minutes later, she was out the gate and into the snow, riding on the giant dog's back. Korra kept a slack hand on the reigns, letting Naga go where she wanted. The dog sniffed the air, and headed out across the tundra.

Since she had been giving her owner a bit of a problem the morning before and fought Korra every step of the way, the Avatar let the dog have free reign in where she wanted to go this morning. Close to the compound as they were, Korra didn't see the harm.

As Naga continued to run around randomly for over half an hour. Korra thought she might have made a mistake in letting the dog just do what she wanted when Naga suddenly took off towards the East. They had been going around for ten minutes, and were almost at the edge of the oversized patch of ice that had been her home for the past several years.

Then Naga went around a snow mound, and Korra pulled her mount to a halt. There was an odd lump in the ground not far away from the waters edge. It was two sheets of ice propped up against each other surrounded by a high ring of snow. When she got closer, Korra saw the top of the ice looked odd, as if someone had melted the ice before letting it freeze together.

"What the heck?" Korra mumbled before jumping off Naga and looking inside the ice tent.

There was a teenage boy in the makeshift tent. His complexion hinted at him being from the Earth Kingdom, although his pointy hair in the back was a bit…odd. There was also a weird slant to his eyes that Korra had never seen in any of the people that had taught her Earthbending.

Then there were his clothes, the light shirt and sandals were definitely _not _what someone in the South Pole would be wearing if they wanted to survive more than a few minutes without loosing anything to frostbite.

But the real disturbing thing about him were the odd red sores that appeared in clusters on his neck and heels. When Korra pulled the boy's sleeve back, she saw he had them on his arm too.

_He's hot_, she realized when she touched his skin. The boy's temperature was way above normal, even if he was running a fever. "Hey, are you-" Korra stopped talking when the boy in her arms moaned and opened his eyes.

Korra smiled for a moment when she realized that the guy wasn't in fact dead, although that smile disappeared when he saw his eyes crack open for a fraction of a second. They were so bloodshot they were practically glowing red. Then, he passed out.

Panic overtook her. _Crap_. Korra looked to the ocean. She could use her bending to try and heal his wounds, only…she had never _seen_ sores like the ones the boy had. Korra knew certain diseased caused skin discoloration, but Katara had never mentioned anything like what the boy had on him; and healing diseased was much trickier than simple burns and broken bones.

_But what if he really needs healing now_? Korra asked herself before she walked over to the water. He looked in bad shape, _really _bad shape. She looked over at the ocean water, then to the boy's sores, and back to the water filled with salt she was fixing to rub into what looked like something that was little better than an open wound.

Korra sighed at her own foolishness and knocked herself on the head. "Right, only fresh water should be used for healing cuts. Calm down Korra before you kill someone."

In the end, she picked the guy up in her arms and set him on Naga before taking a second to gather the guy's stuff; a small bag and a pair of scrolls. Once she had secured her passenger, Korra started heading back to her home as quickly as she could with her injured guest.

When she got to the gate, Korra had one of the guards run off to get Katara while the rest helped her get the boy inside and onto something a little more stable than the back of a polar bear dog. By the time the old waterbender was brought to the boy, he had already bed moved to a comfortable bed inside the compound's small hut had had been set aside for people with highly contagious diseases.

Once they had gotten his shirt off, she could see several more patches all over his arms and chest. "Is he okay? What's wrong with him? What's with those weird scars all over his body?" Korra asked.

Katara sighed at the girl's barrage of questions. It was times like this she really did seem like her older incarnation. "Korra please," Katara replied before she ran her hands over the boy's wounds before checking his eyes, and eventually his teeth; the gums looked ready to bleed at a moments notice. Then, she looked up to one of the guards. "Bring me as much fruit as you can. I don't care what it is, just make sure I can get a lot of juice out of it."

The nonsense that Katara was speaking got her a frown from Korra. "I don't think this is the right time for one of your health drinks," the Avatar grumbled. "Now why don't you try and help him?"

"That's what I'm doing," Katara said as the guards brought in several boxes of snow berries and began crushing them. When she had enough to begin, Katara covered some of the sores in the juices using her Waterbending. "Have I ever taught you about scurvy?"

Korra leaned back and tried her best to remember her health lessons from when Katara lectured her on the healing arts. She came up with nothing. "Nope."

Instead of getting even a little annoyed at her, Korra was a little lost when Katara just nodded. "Well I'm not surprised, it's a rare condition these days. Basically, scurvy is caused by a lack of proper food in the diet. If someone goes without eating the right kinds of food for too long, this is the result."

"Wait a second," Korra said as she held up her hands to stop Katara, "are you saying that something bad really _does_ happen to little girls who don't eat their vegetables?" Then she looked away from the older woman to mumble to herself. "And all this time I thought Mom was just giving empty threats."

Katara chuckled at the girl's reaction, then shook her head. "It's fruits actually. But for it to be this bad…the boy would have had to of gone for at least a month without any of the proper nutrition. You said you found him on the near the eastern bank?"

"Yeah," Korra replied. "I was taking Naga out for her morning walk and she just ran that way. Actually, he may have been there for awhile. She had been wanting to go out that way all yesterday too."

"Scurvy _and _starvation then," Katara mumbled, if he had indeed been out there for more than two days. The boy had been lucky that Korra had been around. The old woman could see the boy looked a little emaciated, but nothing life threatening.

There was the question as to how he survived in the cold for so long with what he was wearing, but that would have to wait till another time. After applying more of the juice directly to the sores and letting the vitamins take effect, she looked back to Korra. "Did he have anything on him?"

Korra held up the bag and scrolls. "Yes," she said before handing them over. "But don't ask me what's in them. I didn't really want to go through his pockets of what I thought was a dead man."

A few minutes later, when the injuries she was treating had faded a great deal, Katara looked back to the White Lotus guard outside the door. "One of you needs to stay with me in case I need you for anything." Then, she turned her attention on Korra again.

"You should go meet with your teachers. Your Firebending test is in three weeks, isn't it?"

Korra looked out to the risen sun, and slumped her shoulders in sigh before she walked outside to start practice.

Several hours later, once the sun had almost sunk into the ocean, Korra poked her head back into the healing hut to check back in on their guest. Judging by the pile of stuff next to his bed, there had been quite a few things in his pockets. She could see pair of scrolls, and really pointy knives with holes on the ends, what looked like some kind of wire, and a larger pointed knife.

_I wonder who is he is_, she asked herself before turning her attention over to the guard outside the hut. "Hey, has he woken up at all since this morning?"

"No Ma'am," the guard replied. "Master Katara gave him some medicine after healing his wounds. She said it would keep him out for the rest of the day."

Korra nodded, then looked back inside the place. "Did you find anything on him…like a big piece of paper telling everyone his name and what he's doing here?"

"Nope," the guard replied.

She looked over to the boy, then his stuff. Boy was sleeping. Stuff was begging to be picked through. Korra decided to oblige the stuff and went inside to go through the items.

_Armguards_, she told herself before throwing the things off to the side and moved onto the next item.

_Clothes_. They were Water Tribe furs of course. Katara must have rounded them up for him. The shirt and pants the boy had been wearing were much too light for the South Pole. It begged the question of how he got down here though.

A bit of guilt went through her mind when she turned to the unwrapped scrolls. "On second thought, maybe I should get out of here," Korra mumbled.

Then the stranger on the bed let out a groan, rolled onto his side, and slowly rose. The blankets that were covering his body fell to the side of the bed, and Korra's hair stood on end.

Korra froze when his eyes met hers. "Uhhhhhhh…" She looked over to the pants she was holding, and quickly shoved them into the boy's face and turned away. "Please put these on before you get up."

"_Nani_?"

"Pants. On. You. Now. _Please_."

Korra sighed in relief when she felt the pants get taken out of her hands. "So…you got a name?"

"_Sumimasen_?"

The nonsense she was hearing made Korra look back at the boy. Thankfully, he was fully dressed. _That was fast_, she thought. "Your name's… Su Ma Sen?"

"_Maro nai nian sakui nanra watashi gozen katari ite_?" he said with a frown as Korra looked at him questionably.

For a moment, Korra was put off by the impossibility of why the boy was talking so weird. But… "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?"

Several minutes later, Korra found herself pacing back and forth in the healer's hut. She watched Katara take another scoop of water and run it over the stranger's back where there had been some of those strange abrasions until he'd been healed this morning.

"So what's wrong with him?" Korra asked as Katara finished with the skin treatments and looked the stranger over for other problems.

"Korra, just because he's speaking gibberish doesn't mean-"

Korra rolled her eyes. "That something is wrong with him? Because people usually know how to talk by my age."

The comment didn't keep Katara from running her water covered hands over the back of the boy's head. At least he was cooperating, there had been some resistance at first, but once Katara had ran over his old sores with the water to show its healing properties, he had let her have free reign.

"Well," Katara drawled out as she passed over another half-healed patch of skin. "I have heard of something like this before, but I'll need to investigate it further to be sure."

The half-explanation did nothing to satisfy Korra. In fact it only helped increase her anxiety about the whole thing. "So are you actually going to tell us this theory, or do we get three guesses first?"

Katara sighed at the girl's impatience. "I'm not one hundred percent sure yet, but…when I was younger and working as a healer after the great war, I had contact with many people who had every kind of wound imaginable. One of these men had lost his ability to speak properly after a blow to the head. This boy could very well have a similar injury."

"Great," Korra said with a smile before it turned into one of mild curiosity. "So, why haven't you treated it?"

"Because that's just a preliminary theory, and a rather broad one. It could be something else entirely. I'll need to examine him over several days. Even then, treating these things is always difficult. It could very well be that he may never recover."

-The Next Day-

The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, Korra started her morning routine. After washing up and taking care of the other basic hygiene needs, she went outside to the practice yard for a quick warm-up.

He was already outside, waiting for her. Well, Korra call it _waiting_ per say since he was currently doing pushups, but whenever Korra got up to go practice or work out, he was always there. She knew he wasn't really following her around, but they did tend to cross paths a lot. The training compound was a pretty small place to live, so that was expected.

Besides, she had never seen him during when she did her drills at night.

Well, sometimes she did, but that was only because she bothered to look into the boy's bedroom window and see he was usually asleep an hour past sundown.

From what she could discern, the boy had been in pretty good shape before Korra had found him and was recovering quickly. Katara only needed to spend three days to get rid of those ugly sores, and he was already starting to fill out again with as much time as he spent exercising.

"Hey Stranger," Korra said as she raised her hand in greeting.

With nothing else to call him, 'Stranger' seemed better than 'some guy' 'iceberg boy' or just 'you'. Although Korra wished she could figure out what his real name was; even if Katara said it might very well be pointless.

The injury Katara said he had might have scrambled the part of the brain that controlled how words were formed and understood. Even if she pointed at herself and just said Korra a million times to try and introduce herself, Stranger would hear it differently each time. At least that was how she understood Katara's explanation of how he was injured.

Well, the only explanation that made sense to her. Katara had some other theories, but if he had simply forgotten how to talk, Korra would have been able to communicate with him at least a little bit. As it was, he didn't say a word.

Stranger must have been injured when he was very young since he couldn't read either. There was some limited communication at least. He understood tones, facial expressions, and hand signals.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked before she came over beside him and started to limber up. Just because he couldn't understand her didn't mean she wasn't going to talk to him. That would be rude. Besides, the friendliness of her voice got across…she hoped.

For his part, the boy hadn't been hostile or anything, just…distant. On the other hand, Korra figured she could be reading too much into the whole thing. The guy couldn't talk after all.

Korra got the kinks of her neck before she started working on her legs. "I think I'm going to get a stone arena for my test instead of just a cleared out section of dirt.. Either one is better than the rug idea, I won't set the thing on fire that way. What do you think?"

Of course, Stranger was completely silent. He hadn't actually talked since the first day he'd been in the compound. He hadn't even tried to hold a silent conversation since finding out where he was by pointing at a map until someone showed him where they were on it.

"Yeah, an earth arena would probably be the best," Korra told him; or herself really. Having Naga for a best friend had given her a habit of voicing her thoughts to anything that didn't talk back.

As soon as she was done warming up, Korra looked back to Stranger. "Okay, heading off for morning practice."

Korra raised her hand to wave goodbye, which was a slightly different motion than her hello wave, and jogged over to the middle of the icy field to go through her forms. As usual, when she looked back, Stranger was openly watching her go through the various forms that involved Firebending while he switched exercises to get a better view. He didn't come any closer though, which Korra didn't understand. It wasn't as if she was going to burn him accidentally or anything.

Despite Stranger's apparent interest in her bending talents, Korra had never been able to get more than a mild 'humph' of response when she performed them. The guy might not have been able to talk or hear correctly, but he _had _to have known she was the Avatar by now. He'd seen her bend three elements. Was it too much to ask for a little applause?

She wasn't asking he act like some of the boys from the Southern Tribe village. The way some of them fawned over her simply because she was the Avatar was…well, _creepy_ was the only word she had for it.

Once she had run through the basics, Korra snuck a peek behind her to see Stranger was still there before looking back at the sludge that had been a light layer of snow just a few moments ago. "Well, I need to wait a second to re-freeze everything so…want to see something cool?" she asked.

Korra took a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth, repeating the practice several times to help get her chi flowing before she started her move. _Okay keep calm_, she told herself as she let the energy flow out of her. Korra carefully traced the arc of where she wanted it to go through the air, the electricity cracked over her, and she threw the lighting out over her head to let it disperse into the sky.

When she turned around to look at Stranger, Korra couldn't help but smirk at the fact he had stopped his exercises. "Yeah, I can throw lightning too," she explained with a smirk. Maybe she was sounding a bit too cocky. "Of course, it still takes me too long to build it up to use lighting in a real fight."

In the compound's main building, Senbu frowned as he watched the Avatar try to show off. "She's doing it again," he grumbled.

Katara walked up to stand beside the old man and watch the spectacle. Unlike him though, she simply let out a laugh. "Lightning now hmmm? You know, it's times like this when I really do see my old husband in her. Aang used to try performing in front of crowds for attention all the time."

"Why is she so interested in that boy anyway?" the old man asked. "He's deaf _and _mute. We should just send him off to your old village."

The foolishness of the question explained why Senbu had never gotten married. "You're honestly asking _why_ a teenage girl that's been surrounded by old men and women her whole life wants to get the attention of an attractive boy around her own age?" Katara deadpanned. "But if you want the reason why he's still here, I don't know for certain that his problem is incurable yet."

She hadn't even found the reason for the boy's language impediment. As far as Katara could tell, there was nothing wrong with his mind at all. Even if the majority of the brain's functions were still a big unknown, she should have at least been able to find _something_.

But, he did have other problems that she was still working on, and hose were going smoothly, if slowly.

"Besides," Katara added, "I think Korra would be even more distracted by having to run to the village every day to chat with him."

The fire bender let out an annoyed grunt. "_Chat_," he grumbled. "She just babbles about anything that pops into her head in front of him."

Katara let out a laugh. _A man that does nothing but listen to women and look that good_, she told herself. And Katara could tell he _was_ listening whenever Korra talked, even if he didn't understand a word. Then there was the fact they had worked out a system of telling each other basic directions.

"Well, I need to go remind Korra to walk that dog of hers before she leaves a mess in the pens again," Katara said before Senbu could continue with his berating of the Avatar's guest. It was also time for the boy's morning checkup too.

After Korra had taken Naga out for her morning walk, Katara led the boy into the healer's hut to perform her work. They had long since moved him into a room inside the compound, but the hut had a constant supply of clean water from under the ice thanks to some careful bending on Katara's part.

They went through the usual motions with his morning physical. Even if he couldn't understand Katara, she still told him to sit down and everything else verbally. Although she suspected the exact words were lost on him, repetition had given the boy enough knowledge of the process to know what to do.

First, Katara had him remove his coat and she examined his body. The rate which he was recovering was almost disturbing. While the boy ate enough for two people, that wouldn't have made the small hollowness in his cheeks fill out as fast as it did. His muscles were also filling out quite well too, but at least was understandable when all he did was exercise.

Katara had him lay down as she checked the boy's chi pathways. Like always, they were intensely active; much more than a normal person's should have been. She knew that had to be the reason for his phenomenal recovery rate, but why the pathways were so overdeveloped was a mystery to her. She didn't even know _how_ something like that could happen.

Avatar, bender, or not, everyone chi pathways had a set range.

The oddest part about it was that the distribution of the flow wasn't even. A great deal of it seemed to be concentrated around his chest. Katara had no idea if that was from the problems he had encountered while at sea, or something else. Still, she'd had some luck in…spreading the concentration out so his body flowed more in-tune, but it was a slow process that was going to take a least a couple more weeks.

"Back," she instructed. Katara knew it was best to keep things simple with the boy when it came to verbal commands.

When Katara had finished with his back, she moved onto the part that she hadn't had any success with lately. The boy closed his eyes, and Katara covered everyone on his head except the nose and mouth with water. Once again, she felt the overdeveloped pathways and the bit of damage left by months spend in the ocean without the proper kind of food. But she didn't sense anything wrong with the boy's mind.

It was a real quandary. Even when she had no idea how to fix the problem, Katara could always tell there was something wrong by the flow of someone's chi. But the stranger's chi was perfectly normal; or above normal really. Katara hated to admit it, but this boy's problem was leaving her completely stumped. Since he was responding, Katara had long since thrown away the theory that it was a translation problem in the communication centers of his brain.

The hypnosis she was currently forming made her suspect it was some sort of odd amnesia.

With the healing session over and another partial failure put on her record, Katara threw the water she had been using on the boy outside. "I suppose at the least I've invented a new way to wash someone's hair," the old woman mumbled. She stepped back and nodded at the boy. "Done."

-Weeks Later-

Korra poked at the gruel in her bowl with her spoon and pulled out one of the offensive fried fruits. She looked up at the rest of the people sitting around the table. "Am I the only one here who doesn't like sea prunes?" she asked with a frown. She looked over to Stranger for support, but he just looked at her, shrugged, and continued eating.

"Your Firebending test is tomorrow," Katara told her. "You should eat something healthy to build up your strength."

The sea prune fell back into the mush as she turned the spoon to dump it out. "It's not very healthy if I'm going to throw the stuff up two minutes after I eat it."

Katara sighed at the Avatar's attitude. _Maybe a change of subject is in order_. "I received word that Zuko might be coming to observe your test."

"The former Fire Lord?" Korra mumbled, a little interested. "I thought he was supposed to be traveling around talking to all the other nations too keep everything in order while I was training."

"Well this _is_ your Firebending test," Katara explained rather bluntly. "That aside, I thought you'd be glad."

Korra rolled her eyes as she relented. She didn't exactly like being compared with her old life all the time, but Korra had to admit something inside her did like having the old man around. "Oh, I am. It's just…I don't know…doesn't he have something better to do?"

As much as she hated to admit it, Korra did have a point. "Yes," Katara relented. "But you know how he's been getting since his daughter took over as Fire Lord, er I mean, Lady." She looked over to their resident fire bender, "do they change title when it's a woman?"

"No, it's still Fire Lord," Senbu explained before going back to his food.

Korra sighed, then looked over to the boy sitting across from her before she glanced back at Katara. "So, any luck with the healing sessions?"

A headshake was all she got from Katara before the woman swallowed her food. "I've successfully evened out his chi pathways, but haven't had any luck with the other problems. If I didn't know better, I'd say that _nothing_ is wrong with him."

The rather scary thought made Korra looked over to Stranger for a moment. "Hey you're not really faking it, are you?" she asked with a frown. The stuff she had gone on about in front of him more than once was enough to make her die from embarrassment.

When all he did was cock an eyebrow, his usual response whenever she asked him a question, Korra found herself slightly relived. It as like he was saying 'Do you honestly think I understand you'.

"Whatever," Korra said before she stood up. "I'm gonna go get some meat."

_And times like this, I'm worried about just how closely she's related to Sokka_, Katara told herself. Thanks to the Hundred Years War, the Southern Water Tribe was a bit on the small side not counting the immigrants from the Northern Tribe and the Earth Kingdom swamp. Everyone from the original tribe had family ties in one way or another.

The rest of the meal passed without much problem. Then Korra left for some last minute training before bed.

When the morning came, Korra picked herself off of her bed and got dressed, this time putting on the flame resistant suit that had been given to her when she started her Firebending training. It had been months since she had needed to wear the thing, but since this would be a fight against multiple fire benders, it was better to be safe than sorry.

On the up side, Korra had found her teachers were agreeable to fighting on something that wouldn't melt halfway through the test. She hadn't even needed to use a big speech and several arguments she'd prepared ahead of time.

After the usual morning chores and walking Naga, Korra came back in time to see that the people who would be administering her test had arrived. They were three fire benders she had never seen before, who didn't know her way of fighting, just like she didn't know theirs. However, she noticed someone that should have been there was absent.

"Is Zuko inside visiting with Katara?" Korra asked the guard waiting for her at the gate to take Naga back to her pen.

"Lord Zuko didn't show," the guard explained. "I think I heard the benders talking about some territorial dispute he had to take care of. Sorry kid, looks like your old buddy isn't coming this time."

Korra frowned at the 'old buddy' comment, but didn't bother to make a big deal of it as she headed to the proving ground to start her Firebending test. By the time it was over, she was seriously considering making the fire resilient clothing part of her normal wardrobe, in a more fashionable color at least.

Everything had gone off without a hitch, no tripping, slipping, or sliding on patches of ice. With the suit to help with keeping her from getting burned, Korra had even pulled off several advanced moves that she had always been a little iffy about before since messing them up would have gotten her burnt hands.

Her babysitters had been a little reluctant to give her a pass. They had gone on about how she was good at the physical, but not so much at the spiritual and philosophical side of her Avatar status. Luckily, a few words from Katara had managed to sway them.

With everything finally over, Korra was a bit of a loss about what do to for the next few days. It would take at least two days just for her Airbending master to arrive by sky bison, even if it was the fastest ridable animal on the planet; as long as no one counted dragons. But there were only two dragons left in the world, maybe three if they ever bred. Sky bison numbered at least a dozen.

From what Korra knew, the previous Avatar had found a heard of them during one of his adventures on some islands West of the Fire Nation. From what Korra remembered of the story, the islands themselves had been discovered completely by accident because of a bet between Aang and Sokka on who was the best flyer over long distances: the Avatar, or his spirit animal. Of course when they found the herd, the bet was totally forgotten.

In the end, it took a full week for Tenzin to finally show up. While the sky bison could make the trip in two days, it took the better part of the week for the letter informing him Korra was ready to begin her air bender training. Those days were an absolute hellish nightmare that she really didn't want to have to relive ever again.

At first Korra had thought that some time off would be enjoyable, but after two strait days of doing nothing, she felt like she was going to loose her mind. After four days, Korra was certain that she had every single one-sided conversation that was possible with a dog and a cute boy who didn't talk back. Day five had her considering the horrid possibility of Tenzin being late. When the end of the sixth day arrived and she _finally_ saw the sky bison coming down from the clouds, Korra was about ready to jump out of her skin in anticipation.

"Finally," Korra exclaimed to the boy next to her as she watched the giant animal swim its way through the sky. When she looked over to Stranger's face, his mouth was slightly agape with a look of disbelief crossing his features.

"What? You've never seen a giant flying six-legged monster before?" she asked with a smirk on her mouth.

"I told you that would crack him," Katara said to the girl. Although in truth, she had been wanting to see the normally stoic boy's jaw hang a bit more. Even Zuko had more personality to him than the stranger boy; speech problem or not.

Judging from the looks Stranger was giving them, Korra was pretty sure he knew they were making fun of him.

"Couldn't resist," Korra told him as the bison landed.

As soon as the creature was on the ground, Tenzin's two daughters rode air scooters down the animal's tail, which seemed to get Stranger's attention and obviously made him forget the whole thing a moment later. The third and only male child of the world's only Airbending master continued to hold onto Tenzin's head and pull his ears while his father dismounted.

"Hello Mother," Tenzin said as he greeted Katara in his usual dignified manner, which was just about ruined with the little boy on his shoulder's constantly yanking his ears. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you."

He bent down so that his shoulder's were within the old woman's reach. "_Help me_."

As soon as Katara took the boy, he resisted with flailing arms and demanded to be let go before freeing himself with a mild blast of wind. As soon as he was back on the ground, the boy ran up to his own mother while the eldest daughter of the children approached her grandmother.

"Gran-Gran, I've been reading all about your adventures. I've been dying to ask you, what happened to Zuko's mom?"

Katara smiled at the twelve-year-old girl. "Well Jinora, it's an incredible tale-"

Which wouldn't be told, as the middle child of the Airbending children decided that was the best time to interrupt her grandmother by jumping between the old woman and her older sister. "Gran-Gran, you look old. How old _are_ you? Why's it so cold in the South Pole? Can we make a camp fire and all huddle around it and tell scary stories and make snowmen, and could you make the snowmen dance and chase us around? Wouldn't that be fun, huh? Wouldn't it?"

_F__rom the looks of things, Airbending will help increase my lung capacity at least_, Korra thought as the group moved away from her to help Tenzin's wife down from the bison. Judging by the bulge in Pema's robes, she was pregnant again.

Korra wondered what the odds were of an Avatar only having one air bender in three children, while his son ended up with three. _Wait…make that four, _Korra told herself after hearing the exchange between the two women as Katara felt the woman's belly.

For some reason, Pema didn't seem very happy about it.

But after seeing how their son Meelo just covered himself in snow before blowing it all over everyone else in the area, Korra was starting to understand the woman's feelings.

With the initial greetings out of the way, Korra looked past Katara, prompting Tenzin to finally take notice of her. "Korra?" he asked before she approached him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Look at you. You've grown into quite the young Avatar."

"Master Tenzin I'm so glad you're here. I can't wait to begin my training," Korra told him excitedly.

The older man cleared his throat. "Korra…about that."

-Latter That Night-

When the old man had come on that wingless flying animal, he had known something was up. At first he had thought it was nothing and that it was just misreading the situation. the old man had brought what was obviously his family after all. This place was so much different than what he was used to.

Korra, at least he was pretty sure that was her name, seemed to have been really disappointed by something the man said when he first arrived, and they'd been arguing the whole night and most of the following day.

Now the old man was gone, and Korra was even more agitated and depressed than when the man had been around.

_I should probably just forget about this whole thing and move on_, he told himself as he looked out the window to his room. He wasn't here for this, and didn't care about the girl one way or another…even if he _did_ owe her his life.

How long had he been laying in the snow before she found him, hoping to recover? Two…three days? What was supposed to be a simple exploration was turned into a near death experience because of…well, he still had no idea what exactly happened to him while out in the ocean. It had obviously been some kind of disease, but the fact that something had managed to infect _him_ of all people had been quite disturbing.

Then there was the language barrier, something else he hadn't been counting on. Three weeks of immersion had given him some knowledge of how the locals talked, but understanding only about one word in five just wasn't going to cut it. He was stuck in this place until he was at least able to get the basics of a conversation.

If it came down to it, he could always use the backup plan, but…that was a little iffy. He' only had three weeks to practice the jutsu late at night, and even then it was just on animals. People were more resistant to Genjutu.

There was also what the older woman had done to him, besides the healing. Thanks to his battles in the war, he had an idea of what had happened and what it meant, but he was extremely hesitant to test his theory.

When he saw the dark-tan girl suddenly run out of the man building in her blue furs, he knew something was wrong. It was almost the middle of the night, the girl was never up this late. What was even more suspicious was she was heading towards the pen where her giant dog…_thing_ was housed.

The only thing that didn't mark her as running away right off the bat was her complete lack of supplies.

For a moment he just thought about leaving her to run around in the middle of the night, get hungry and come back by morning when she tried to go to sleep without a sleeping bag in the artic. _Or I suppose she could freeze to death_, he considered.

_Whatever it has nothing to do with me, _he told himself.

Even if she _could_ use four elements…and possibly all five…

Even if she _had_ saved his life…

Even if he didn't have any real reason to dislike her…despite the fact she _never_ shut up…although that was probably a good thing considering he still needed passable language skills and she was the only one who really talked to him at length.

The thought of turning her in crossed his mind, and was quickly crushed by the sheer weight of the irony _that_ particular action entailed.

In the end, he made the only decision necessity and his conscience would allow him to make.

The boy collected his things and some of the winter clothes that the old woman had given him into a pack before he went into the hallway. First he would need to get some of Korra's things, and after that he'd head to the kitchen for some food. But there was one little thing he needed to take care of before any of that. It seemed the month and a half deciphering that one jutsu while lost at sea and the weeks of practice on the giant dog were finally going to pay off.

"Hey there kid, you lost? This is the Avatar's room, so beat it!" the guard told him.

Then he just buried his fist into the man's stomach and opened the door before dropping the idiot onto the floor. He grabbed the guard's hair and turned the man's face to meet his own. "_Now repeat after me."_

A minute later, he left the room with the man mumbling on the floor.

"Door, cat, at, in, inside, bending, stop, go, yes, no, element, fire, water, air, lightning-" the door closed cutting off the rest. He hadn't planned on the constant repeating, but the main idea had worked.

Genjutsu, whether passed via touch, sound, or sight effected the brain directly and transcended things like language or syntax as long as the caster wanted them to. If the caster wanted the person under the effect of the Genjutsu to see a dog, they saw a dog. If the caster wanted the person effected to say dog, that's what they said, however the caster wanted them to.

-Meanwhile Down Below-

Korra woke her polar bear dog to saddle her, being careful to keep everything quiet. If Tenzin wouldn't stay at the South Pole, then she'd just have to follow him to Republic City. Once she was there, he couldn't just turn her away. Right?

"Nice night for running away, isn't it?" an old voice said from behind her.

Korra froze, and slowly turned around so see Katara was standing at the entrance to Naga's stable. For a moment she thought about denying it, but Katara deserved the truth…and Korra really didn't have a plausible lie as to why she'd be taking Naga out in the middle of the night. "I have to leave. I have to find my own path as the Avatar." She tried to come up with another reason but…Korra couldn't put it any more straightforward than that.

"I know you do," Katara replied.

"_Really_?" she asked, surprise making her stumble back.

Katara let out a giggle. "You _did_ listen to at least some of my stories, didn't you? I was out running around the world when I was even younger than you," she said with a smile before her face turned more serious. "This place…ever since Aang was killed, and you took longer than expected to be born, there has been an aura of fear governing the decisions made concerning your safety. We meant well by trying to give you a sanctuary to learn the elements, but it has also been a hindrance. I believe you need to get out and see this world that you, and your generation, will have to protect when the time comes."

The mention of her death in a former life made Korra's head hurt. She could remember laying on a table in a strange room. Not being able to move, barely able to breath, she remembered the knife cutting into her, no _his_, body, and the man doing it all… She closed her yes and pushed the memory away before it caused her to throw up.

_Longer to be born_? Korra asked herself. Of course, everyone still thought Aang had died that day in Republic City. She had never told them that he had been kept alive afterwards…Korra didn't know how long it was herself; and she had no desire to do the math from Aang's official date of death to Korra's birthday to try and figure it out. The whole thing was just too damn creepy.

"So…you're just letting me go?" Korra asked, still put of by the impossibility of the situation.

"I am, but the guards may have something different in mind," Katara said with a small smile. "By the way, I hope you escape plan wasn't simply walking out the front gate with your dog." A few seconds later, her face turned absolutely serious and the woman's tone went flat. "Please tell me that _really_ wasn't your escape plan."

Korra didn't meet he woman's eyes as she pressed her fingers together and pulled them apart several times. "Well…I had a good excuse."

With the absolute proof the Avatar had been much too sheltered right in front of her, Katara couldn't help but sigh. She thought about just letting the girl get caught, the escape could have been the first real test of her abilities.

"The old woman letting you go or not?"

Korra frowned at the unfamiliar voice and its rather strange accent, then looked up at the entrance to her dog's pen to see if one of the guards had managed to catch up with her. "Does everyone know I'm leaving tonight?" she mumbled to herself before looking around. _Who said that anyway_?

Even Katara seemed on edge, and Korra knew hardly anything rattled that woman.

The sound of snow being crushed got her attention, and she looked to see a figure step out of the shadows carrying a backpack in each hand.

It took about two seconds to figure out what was going on. Korra slumped her shoulders. "So now even the deaf mute knows I'm leaving. Great," she deadpanned.

"I can hear and talk," Stranger corrected her.

Korra's mouth went slack at the response coming from the boy with the partly spiky hair. "_Excuse me_?" she asked, not quite believing what she had just heard.

"But…the amnesia how could you-"

"Am-ne-ze-a?" Stranger asked the older woman. "I do not know that word. Even the reflecting moon only gives me so much time and…never mind." He turned his attention from Katara to Korra. "You leaving tonight?"

He held up one of the backpacks with the bedroll tied to its top. "You might need something to eat and sleep on."

Korra blinked several times at the boy standing in front of her. "You can _talk_?" she exclaimed.

"Obviously," the boy replied evenly. Well, there may have been some slight annoyance in his tone, but Korra wasn't sure since he had such a strange accent. "But it took time-"

"Look, just uh, forget about what I said three days ago…"

"Korra-"

"-and last week…"

Since she had stopped talking, the boy opened his mouth to speak, and-

"And when I took you fishing the week before that," Korra continued. "Oh spirits! Please don't tell my mom I think her kelp cakes taste like something Naga left on the-"

"Stop talking!" he told her, taking time to form the words. "I understood very few words still." It was a total lie, but much more believable than the truth. "And you talk too fast understand…complaining?" He looked over to Katara. "Is that word?"

Katara raised an eyebrow at the boy. From the way he was talking about things, it almost seemed as if he had needed to actually learn how to speak. But, that didn't make sense. It wasn't as if people had different languages.

Had she been right with her second theory? It really wasn't something wrong with his verbal centers, but his memory? Was it simply that he had _forgotten _how to talk, and read?

Katara hated grasping at straws when she was supposed to be the one giving out the sage advice.

"We need get going," he told her before throwing Korra one of the packs and shouldering the other one. The man turned to look at Katara. "You going to stop us?"

Korra stepped forward. "Whoa hold on a second? _Us?_"

"I do not think girl who runs away with no food or blankets should be left alone," he told her.

Katara looked over to Korra skeptically. "You didn't take anything to eat?"

For her part, Korra didn't meet the older Water Tribe woman in the eyes. Having her little omission pointed out made her seem pretty foolish. It would take at least three days to reach Republic City by ship, if there was even one at the port. The lack of supplies would have been a real problem. "Well…I haven't really done anything like this before so…yeah."

"And why exactly do you think I'll be letting you just walk out of here with the Avatar?" Katara demanded of the boy. "I know nothing about you, not even your name."

"Actually, that's a good point," Korra said, glad the attention was off her for the moment. "Why exactly _do_ you want to come with me? You could walk out of here any time you wanted." On top of that, the guards would be happy to see him go. "And if you can talk then why don't you actually tell me your damn name!"

The boy sighed, looked back at the entrance to Naga's pen, then over to the two women. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I came here for," he stopped and looked away for a moment, as if embarrassed or annoyed, "…I didn't come _here_ for anything. I was in the water for a long time, and landed in the wrong place. But, when my boat landed, I could not move more than a few steps. I was there for three days before Korra came. She saved me. If she is leaving, I should also."

_Weird name_, Korra thought, and the guy's manner of speech was horrible. If he had a family name, that meant…Earth Kingdom, or maybe Fire Nation, and someone of influence. Or at least someone related to someone who had been of influenced in the past. History lessons had taught Korra that there had been plenty of noble families that had fallen out of power but kept on to the name for the sake of their pride.

Katara smiled. It smelled a little iffy, but…did they really have a choice right now? It wasn't as if Korra couldn't handle the boy anyway. Even when he hadn't understood a word, he hadn't been very violent. "Well, good luck to the two of you then."

"You're seriously okay with this?" Korra asked.

It took a moment for Katara to find the right words, gaining an air of wisdom about her. "Korra, there are times in the lives of people like you where a great many incomprehensible things come crashing together in inexplicable ways. These are moments of destiny." Aang's whole life had been like that. There was no reason Korra's wouldn't at least be similar. It was one of those Avatar things.

Then the woman lost her mysterious aura of wisdom. "And experience has taught me that trying to stop them only makes you end up looking pretty foolish and angry at yourself when it happens anyway."

_As if, I'm the one who decides where I wanna go_, Korra told her mentally.

"Now the two of you better get going. And I hope you have a way to sneak that pet of yours out of here."

Two hours later, Korra was really wondering if Katara was right about the whole destiny thing. They had managed to sneak away from the compound by tunneling underneath the ground, Korra's idea of course, and happened to find a ship at the port that was bound strait for Republic City after saying goodbye to Korra's parents. Sneaking Naga onboard wasn't even that hard, and people in the South Pole rally tended to notice when a type of animal that usually went around eating people got near them.

When they finally made it down into the ship's hold and hid while the crew finished their last check before casting off, Korra let out a sigh of relief. After counting to thirty in her head to give everyone else time enough to et away from the cargo hold, she turned to look at Sasuke.

There were dozens of questions running through her head. She had gotten a few answers during the ride to the Southern Tribe's village, but her mind had been rehearsing what she wanted to say to her parents so much Korra half-forgot he as there.

"So…why do you want to go to Republic City?" she asked, it was best to start with the most obvious questions.

"I need to learn…something," Sasuke replied, then opened his back to rifle through it.

Korra frowned. _Well that was helpful_. "Learn what?"

For a minute she thought he was ignoring her, but he pulled a pair of books out of his pack and tossed one to her. "I do not know."

"Excuse me?" Korra asked, now completely lost.

"I do not know the word, and…" he let out a disgruntled sigh. "I need to find old information, before I was born. A place where that stuff is…" Sasuke stopped and tapped the book he was holding.

The light bulb above Korra's head went off. "Oh you mean a library!" she exclaimed. "Or a bookstore. Maybe a university or museum." From the looks he was giving her, Korra could tell he didn't understand most of what she was saying. Then she looked down at the two books and saw they were the same ones. "Why do we have the same book?"

"I need you to show me how the word inside…talk, I think is the best way of saying it," Sasuke told her.

Korra started at the boy with a deadpan expression. "Seriously?" she asked. "You're looking for a library, and you don't know how to read?"

"Show me how. Talk the words. I will follow."

The command, and Korra had a feeling that it _was_ a command, made the girl frown a the boy. _I liked him better when he couldn't talk_. "Okay, first Four Nations language lesson. There's this word called _please_, you say that when you want someone to do you a favor."

"Please show me how," Sasuke repeated with the same tone as before.

Korra imagined how this was all going to sound…

"_What did you do on your first big Avatar adventure Korra?" Jinora asked_.

"I _bravely snuck out of the Avatar training compound after being caught twice by an old lady and a cute guy. Then I managed to keep from crying when I told my parents goodbye, and then we stowed away on a ship where me and the cute guy spend the whole time…__**reading**__," Korra said, adding emphasis on the last word as she wiggled her fingers to try and add some drama to the word_.

Back in reality, Korra wondered if her whole life was going to be this disappointing.

"Okay fine," she grumbled. "But once you can actually hold a real conversation, you're answering every damn question I ask you, _ever_!"

It was eerie how fast Sasuke learned to read and improve his vocabulary. Korra had a theory as to why he could do it so quickly, but kept it to herself until they were done.

The first day was full of lessons on words he tripped up on, and the first chapter of the book he had brought with them; a brief history of the Hundred Years War was hardly light reading. They had read it for about an hour, and then went to bed. At least Korra had, when she awoke the next morning Sasuke told her he's gone through the whole book overnight and had several characters written down that he needed explanations on.

The end of the second night also brought an end to the books. Sasuke had apparently skimmed through them all while Korra was asleep and just wanted a few words identified.

The third night was the only time they actually had time to talk. By then, even his accent had disappeared.

"So, why are you here?" Korra asked.

It took a moment for Sasuke to come up with the best answer to her question. He couldn't tell her the whole truth of course, but didn't want to be caught in a lie so soon either. "I'm looking for information about the spirit world…sort of." The instructions he had found hadn't been all that clear, but finding what he needed would be a long journey without a guide.

Korra sighed at the half-reminder towards her own failing as an Avatar. "Well don't look at me for answers. I mean, I may be the Avatar, but so far my spiritual connection mojo is pfft," she explained while razzing the last part, and what she thought of the whole spiritual connection part in general.

"Do you remember anything else?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" Sasuke replied.

"About you I mean," Korra explained. "Your amnesia. I figure that's the only way you could have learned to read this fast. You were just…remembering it with some help."

Sasuke didn't look to convinced with her theory, but Korra supposed it would sound strange when he was the one who needed to be re-taught everything. With that part of the conversation dying a quick death, she just moved onto her next question.

"So where you from?" she asked, putting her other question aside.

"I come from a village on the western edge of the Fire Nation," Sasuke lied. The fake background he'd come up with over the past two days wouldn't hold up under scrutiny, but the girl had lived her entire life in a giant box, so Sasuke doubted Korra would be able to call him on anything.

Korra nodded at the answer. The family name had said he was from the Earth Kingdom, but the Fire Nation still had a few noble lines left in them from what she knew. "Why were you in the South Pole?"

The sigh that came out of Sasuke's mouth told her it wasn't a question he wanted to answer. "I…got lost."

"Right, the two months thing," she mumbled to herself. "But…how the heck were you in the ocean for that long?"

This time he didn't need to lie, much anyway. "I was on a ship that ran into a major storm. It took us up and we were trapped in it for days and the ship took major damage, and we were forced to abandon ship. I didn't know anything about sailing or navigating on my own, so I just headed South, hoping I'd reach the pole before my food ran out."

Of course the real story was much more complicated. He had left the Land of Wind on a small boat that managed to survive the system of storms that surrounded his homeland and marked the end of the known world, after five days of dragging the small boat behind him over rough waters. After that, it was month after month of sailing West. Sasuke resorted to catching fish when his food ran out, and having to purify the ocean water to drink. When the sickness set in, he was reduced to just drifting. It was pure happenstance that he managed to reach the Pole. It had taken all of his strength just to walk off the remains of his ship before it was swept up in the current again and hauled off.

"But, I thought scurvy takes months to develop," Korra asked.

"Like I said, I got lost…and I didn't head for the South Pole right away."

The Avatar winced at the implications. Months alone at sea? Having to scrounge for food from whatever could be caught? "No wonder you don't talk much," she mumbled to herself.

The ship's horn sounded overhead, and both of the stowaway's covered their ears to keep their skulls from rattling too much. Korra sighed, then leaned back against Naga as she tried to think of her next move since they'd be arriving in the city soon.

"If you're looking for information on the spirit world, then I suppose you could go talk to Tenzin." She didn't know if there were any books about the spirit world, even at the city universities. "What exactly is it did you need?"

"It's personal," Sasuke lied.

Korra thought it best not to press the issue. "Whatever…we should be pulling into port for unloading soon enough anyway. Let's get our stuff packed up. I want to be on our way out the second the cargo doors open."

"Cargo doors?" Sasuke mumbled.

"Yeah," she said before pointing to the large impression on the right side of the room. "This is a C-12 transport, and nothing in here looks heavy enough to require major machinery. They'll probably start unloading as soon as they dock." When the other teenager just gave her a blank look, Korra sighed. "Look, I'm Southern Water Tribe, you learn these kinds of things down there."

It didn't take long for the ship to pull into port and complete its docking procedures. As soon as the door opened, Korra had Naga run down the ramp and out of the docking area too fast for anyone to stop them, but not fast enough people couldn't get out of the polar bear dog's way.

Once they had gotten away without incident, she let the dog slow down and come to a complete stop so she could get a look around. Korra had read plenty of stuff about Republic City and seen pictures, but looking at it with her own eyes made all the difference. "This is amazing," Korra exclaimed. "The airships…I've never seen so many satomobiles!"

Sasuke's eye twitched as he looked at the contraptions. "Air ships…sato-mobiles…right…" _That's what that thing in the boat was_? _I though it was just a stupid carriage! What the hell is making them move? And why the hell would people want to ride something that goes so slow anyway_?

For a moment he was tempted to take a look at them with his Sharingan, but thought better of it. Sasuke didn't want to have to go explaining his bloodline trait to these people. So far he had kept the existence of his Sharingan a secret with help of distance back at her home, or only using it at night when Korra was asleep on the cargo ship to memorize the symbols.

Korra turned her attention to the Aang monument, and a brief chill went down her spine. History said that was the very spot where he had died. With no body to erect a proper tomb, the people of the city had simply built a gigantic statue to honor him there.

"And there's Air Temple Island," Korra said, pointing to the larger landmass in the bay. "It's where Tenzin lives with his family, and train the Air Acolytes."

Sasuke frowned and looked over Korra's shoulder. "I thought you said Tenzin and his family were the only people who could use the wind element…other than the Avatar I mean." When Korra gave him an odd look, Sasuke mentally berated himself. He had obviously asked about something which was probably common knowledge to everyone else.

"Yeah, but the acolytes are non-benders who study the Air Nomad's philosophy," Korra explained. She had thought everyone knew that… _but then again, who am I to judge_? Growing up in that compound hadn't exactly made Korra worldly.

"Well let's hurry up and find a boat to take us over to the island," Sasuke grumbled.

Korra rolled her eyes at the suggestion. "That'll take too long." the second she stopped, her stomach let out a growl and she reached to quiet it down. "Besides, I'm hungry. Naga got into my bag and ate the last of our food last night. We can just ride Naga across."

"You want us to ride a giant dog through half a mile of water?" Sasuke asked, his frown showing his opinion of the idea. "Where we'll be pressed up against a giant, wet, dog…for half a mile?"

With her passenger so reluctant, Korra relented. She sighed and let her shoulders drop. "Fine we'll take a ferry or something." It should only take a few more minutes to find one, adding perhaps an hour to their trip.

An hour later, she was really regretting her decision. The city was a maze of twists and turns when it came to the area around the bay, so they had gone a bit further out a strait path to keep from getting turned around. The only problem was…

"I told you we should have taken that left onto Sokka Avenue," the Avatar said.

"You're the one leading us," Sasuke replied.

…they had no idea how to get back to the bay from where they were.

Sasuke looked up at the building's surrounding them. "If we could find a structure tall enough to see over some of the surrounding buildings, I could take a look around."

The idea was immediately thrown out by Korra. "I don't think Naga would like being in an elevator."

This time Sasuke was able to catch himself before he asked the obvious question of what an elevator was.

"Forget it, I'm asking for directions," she said before stopping at a fruit stand up ahead where an old couple was playing a game of Pai-Sho. "Excuse me, I'm sorry to trouble you but, where do I find the way to Air Temple Island from here?"

The old woman looked up from her game and smiled. "Oh it's no trouble," she said before pointing down the way they were heading. "Just head down this street and through the alley up ahead. You'll-oh dear, you should get moving young lady!"

Korra gave the woman a confused look as the couple suddenly stood up and ran inside the building their stand that sat outside of right as an elegant red satomobile came up to park on the other side of the street.

Three men came out of the car, one wearing green, another black with a red scarf, and a third with a long coat and hat that had light blue hues. If they were following the styles of the city that Korra had observed so far, the colors marked the nation of origin for their families. Judging by his place at the front, the Water Tribe member looked to be the one in charge of the trio.

He walked up to a Earth Kingdom man holding a phonograph and held out his hand. "Mr Chang, you're late with your monthly dues. I'm afraid that I might not be able to protect your home and business," he said while the Fire Nation thug created fire in his hands.

"What's going on here?" Sasuke mumbled.

"Oh, I've heard about stuff like this," Korra replied, a little excited that she was practically seeing a scene from some books she read as a child being reenacted right in front of her. "See, those three hoodlums are part of an extortion scheme called a protection racket. They force weaker people to give them money in return for being left alone. You've never seen one before in your hometown?"

When they heard themselves being referred to as such, the three hoodlums in question turned around to look at the two teenagers with menacing glares.

Sasuke didn't bother to notice the idiots and continued on with his conversation. "No. People in my hometown weren't that stupid." Assaulting shopkeepers in a ninja village was paramount to suicide. It really made no sense to Sasuke either, such things would only damage the economy that the city needed to function.

The closest thing Sasuke could compare it to was what he saw in the Land of Waves, but that had been a whole village taken over via economic means. From what Sasuke had seen, the oversized Republic City was too prosperous not to be able to field some kind of police or military force.

"Hey! Who you calling stupid you little brat!" the man in the green shirt shouted.

Korra stepped in front of Sasuke to protect the non-bender. "You guys," she said with a dangerous smirk as she cracked her knuckles. "I can't believe you idiots would pull something like that in front of me and just think I'd let you get away with it."

The leader of the thugs stepped forward and reached into his coat. "Whatever, I'll be sure you send you flowers in the hospital little girl." Without warning, the thug shot a blast of water from a canteen Korra glimpsed right before she caught the attack, and sent it back into his face, then iced it. As he stumbled forward and into her reach, Korra went into a roundhouse kick to his head that knocked him into his car and shattered the ice while knocking the thug out at the same time.

"Okay, who's-" With one down, Korra looked back to the other two gang members, "huh?" she mumbled when she saw Sasuke standing over their unconscious bodies with a few teeth laying in the road next to their heads. She blinked, then looked behind her, then back to the boy with the waterfall bangs, then behind her, and back to him. "But you were? When? How?"

"You pay too much attention to one opponent," he told her before putting the idiots out of his mind. A second later, Sasuke looked back to the couple trembling behind their stand. "Now to get to the island, it's strait on, go through the alleyway, and then what?"

A siren overhead stopped the old woman from talking, and Sasuke looked up to see one of the airships was the sound of the annoying noise. Five men jumped out from the dirigible and shot metal wires out of their gloves that impacted the sides of the buildings and went stiff to slow their falls until they finally landed on the street.

Each one was dressed in armor that looked almost skin-tight around the arms with the chest pieces shin guards, and plates protecting the waists having disturbing similarities to what samurai wore; if a bit archaic. There was also a golden emblem attached to each of their armors with different names and numbers printed on them.

"Cool, metal benders," Korra said right as they landed. She pointed over to the unconscious thugs. "We took care of the troublemakers for you officers."

The head officer looked around the area with a scowl, then back to the pair of teenagers before he cleared his throat. "Yes, I can see that," the man told her before ordering his men to secure the prisoners.

From the looks of their clothes they were from the Triple Threat Triad, which meant he'd be needing to post extra security in this area for the next two months in order to make sure things didn't get out of hand when the next bunch of triad goons showed up to bring home the point that they still owned this section of the city.

He looked back at the causes of what would be a major headache for his foreseeable future. The patrol captain made a mental note to try and bring the kids as much legal trouble to their doorstep as possible. But at the moment, all he could do was trouble them with a mass of paperwork. "And bring them in too."

"What?" Korra shouted. "Why?"

"We'll need sworn legal statements from the both of you, and everyone here who saw anything," the captain declared.

The water bender looked around, glaring at the crowd as of daring any of them to agree.

The old couple stepped forward, the woman leading the two of them. "We didn't see anything officer," she said, with her husband adding, "nope not a thing."

Korra spun around to look at the elderly pair, her cry of indignation cut off when another man stepped forward to say the car just drove up, and the mobsters fell on the ground. Even the salesman they had been extorting claimed nothing happened.

"What the heck is going on here?" Korra demanded.

Sasuke was the one who volunteered the answer. "This one I understand. They're afraid that if they side against these three idiots, then something bad will happen to them. They're basically being controlled out of fear."

It was an interesting idea really. If the law of the city demanded its citizens needed to testify against the criminals in order to punish the offenders, then it would be easy to have free run of the city if no one spoke out against them. All in all it was a rather roundabout way of doing things, and pretty foolish in his opinion.

"Do you still want to give a statement?" the captain asked.

"Of course I do!" Korra shouted.

-A Bit Later-

"Don't you think that place is a little…overdone?" Sasuke asked as he looked out the window and down on the police headquarters.

The policeman beside him frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's takes up a whole city block and there's a twenty foot statue of a woman standing on a balcony," Sasuke said as he pointed to the oversized structure.

"T-This is the main police headquarters for all of Republic City!" the police captain. "It inspires everyone who looks at it and shows the power and dedication of the police! Don't you just feel the aura of such a magnificent piece of architecture?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Meh."

As she police captain hug his jaw, Korra sighed and moved up to comfort the man with a pat on the back. "He's just like that." Although, it was a little…odd to see the boy actually interested in something like a building.

After the airship dropped close enough to the ground to let its passengers disembark and drop off the people under arrest, Korra and Sasuke were led into the police station. The front room was a bustle of activity, with people behind counters handling concerns from citizens face to face, and dozens of other officers running to a fro in the back.

The three of them stood there for a moment. A minute later, the captain was taken aside by another officer who whispered into his ear before the captain turned to face the teenagers. "Wait here. The Chief wants to talk to the Avatar herself."

Korra let out a humph at just being brush aside, then looked over to Sasuke to try and think of some small talk to pass the time. She still had plenty of things she wanted to ask him, although his reluctance to talk about his past meant she would have to be careful about choosing subjects.

When she saw he was looking at something over to his opposite side, Korra bent her neck around to take a look, and froze as a scene replayed itself in her mind…

_The masked man didn't bother dodging the rock before the object passed right through him as he came closer to Aang. He was close, almost within arms reach. As close as he was, Aang could see inside the man's eye, a glowing red orb with a strange black design started back at him. Aang's muscles stiffened, and he grit his teeth as he found himself unable to move_.

"_Don't let him touch you!" A wave of fire came from his right, and this time the masked man jumped over the attack before he flipped his body around in midair to avoid Zuko's attack before the Fire Lord began to unleash another barrage of flames_.

_Aang found the ground he was standing on sliding back on its own accord, and he was completely submerged in water for a second, its healing energies allowing him to shake off whatever it was affecting his muscles_.

_Beside him, Katara brought up another wave of water before separating it into over a dozen water javelins that she turned to ice. Next to her, Toph was still as a stone. The man had avoided assaults and attacked them once before by moving through the ground somehow that none of them quite understood, she was their only warning system to that_.

"_Keep up the pressure I don't think he can stay insubstantial forever," Zuko yelled before Aang joined in with several a fire blasts of his own_. _Even if he could, the fire would eat up all his air and force him away_.

_The Fire Lord and the Avatar's fires collided over and over again, forming a dome of flame that grew and increased in intensity. It turned to blue flames, then became white hot as they pushed the fire closer together between blasts to condense the heat. The surrounding rock turned to lava and causing the grass to catch fire without even being touched by the flames_.

_Toph suddenly pointed strait ahead. "He jumped out! He's behind it!_"

_Zuko and Aang sidestepped so they were closer to the rest of the gang and pushed the white ball of fire forward at where Toph said the man was standing. To the Fire benders, their attack rammed into what felt like a wall, and Aang's breath caught when he watched a black flame creep around the edge of his and Zuko's combined attack_.

"_What __**is **__that?" Katara mumbled. _

"_Black…fire?" Zuko muttered in feared confusion as they watched the dark flames seemingly eat the white fireball before beginning to consume the ground around it. The Fire Lord jumped to the side and unleashed a stream of fire at their attacker who was now standing on the water with no ice underneath to hold him up_.

"_I can't see him, what's going on?" Toph said while she planted her feet deeper into the ground_.

_The black flame simply appeared in front of Zuko and met his attack head on, then crept up the stream of flames before it touched his hand a second later. The scarred man screamed as his fingers were covered in the dark fire. He pushed with his other hand to try and throw it off of him, to move the flames or smother them as it crept up the rest of his arm_.

_Katara screamed Zuko's name before melting her ice and rushing over to cover the man's arm in water, which only evaporated seconds after being applied. The water didn't effect the fire in the least, if it even managed to touch the stuff. Katara brought forth a torrent of water that drenched the Fire Lord's whole body, but didn't put out the flames either_.

"_My arm, cut it off!" Zuko yelled_.

_When the masked man looked back at them, Aang kicked up a stone wall and prepared to push it at the man, when their masked attacker came flying over Aang's defense. The blast of air Aang sent at the man did nothing, even his clothes weren't ruffled_.

_Instinct and emotion ruled reason, Aang looked over to Toph and pushed her out of the way before the masked man landed and grabbed onto the Avatar's shoulder. Then, the world seemed to melt into a whirlpool, and everything went black_.

"Korra? Korra you there?" The Avatar jumped away from the hand touching her shoulder and took deep breaths. Her heart was pounding, she looked at Sasuke and was a little surprised as what probably passed for concern on his part covered his face. "Sorry, just…day dreaming," she lied.

_That was…the first day of the week of The Black Flame_, Korra realized. _The day Avatar Aang was…taken_. Korra shuddered at the memory, she could still feel the heat of the fire on her skin.

Of course, that was also the day Aang had officially died. The fire that consumed Zuko's arm hadn't gone out, even when they had Toph dump the thing underwater along with all the other ground that was burning. It burned anything it touched, and even slowly spread across the seabed for seven days before finally dying on its own.

Korra realized she really was spacing out all on her own, without the help of past life memories. She shook herself back into reality, and looked over to the young man. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, just…had one of those moments."

"So you're the Avatar?" an older woman with grey in her hair asked in an authoritative tone, "I'm Chief Lin Beifong."

Then she glanced up to the top of the board showing the various wanted posters for criminals. "Oh, that…yeah, I guess a picture of The Mask would be pretty upsetting to you. But he is the most wanted criminal in the Four Nations, I'm leaving that thing up there till I'm sure he's dropped dead from old age."

"And just how will you ever know who he is?" Sasuke asked in his usual emotionless voice. "I take it no one knows what he really looks like."

The stern woman looked over at the boy before nodding her head a fraction of an inch to give him that point. "True, no one will ever be able to identify him. That mask covered all identifying features. All he would have to do was cut his hair, and he would walk right in and out of this very station without any problems," she admitted. She had read all the old reports of the dozens of imposters who had been brought in the following year. "Of course that still doesn't mean any of us here have forgotten. Even if it's only to remind that bastard I haven't forgotten him, that poster is staying up till I'm sure he's dropped dead from old age."

Korra suppressed a shudder as she forced down the memories of The Mask. "His eyes."

Sasuke switched his attention and watched the girl on the edge of his vision.

The older woman frowned. "Excuse me?"

"His eyes were…different from a normal person's…at least the one I-Aang got a glimpse of. It glowed red, and had these three had these three weird…pupil teardrop…things. I'm not sure how better to describe them than that."

The woman stared at Korra for a moment, then motioned for the girl to follow her. "I was just going to get a few sworn statements from you then send you on your way, but now I think I need to have a word with you in my office." She sapped her fingers to get the attention of one of the nearby officers.

"Take his statement of what happened in district five this morning," she told him before looking over to Korra. "He with you?"

Korra glanced at Sasuke, then back to Lin. "Yes."

"And get him some tea or something for him, he's going to be here for awhile."

Ignoring the women for the moment, Sasuke looked back at the wanted poster with a frown. The man in the picture had a longer hair, and the design on the front of the mask was different, but the single eyehole clearly identified him as the fake Madara.

_So you were here_, Sasuke thought as he glared at the evidence he was on the right track.

He looked back at the Avatar in consideration before she went into one of the back rooms. The fact she could use all five elements had given him suspicions, but Sasuke had been hesitant to act without proof. During the boat ride over to Republic City, Sasuke had gone through every book that he had grabbed for information on the Avatar to try and learn everything he could about her/him.

It wasn't a bloodline trait like the Sharingan, but it did allow the use of all elements with the direct nature manipulation that some of the people on this continent had.

Even now, he just knew it was connected in some way; even if there was no solid proof.

The fake Madara had killed the previous Avatar years ago, and suddenly gained the resource he needed to launch a campaign against the Five Countries.

Did Sasuke have to kill her? It was how these things usually worked.

But, there was also one problem when he considered the facts he knew since coming the Four Nations. _The birth dates don't match up_, he told himself, they weren't even close; and any discrepancy between the two was backwards.

Then there was the real Madara…Sasuke knew next to nothing about how he had achieved his evolution over a hundred and fifty years ago. But like the other man, Sasuke had read the instructions that still rested at the bottom of the Uchiha Compound remains. Those didn't mention anything about another multi-element user.

But how could they _not_ be connected? The similarities were more than just coincidence.

What was he missing?

"Sir, are you ready to give your statement?" a man asked, bringing Sasuke out of his considerations.

Sasuke turned around to give a quick nod, then followed the officer through the main room while sparing a glance at the chief's office to look at Korra in consideration.

It seemed that he would need to be sticking by her for the foreseeable future to figure things out.

-The Chief's Office-

Korra felt like she wanted to throw up. When she had let it slip about The Mask's eyes, Lin had dragged her into the chief's office to get a full report as well as have her sign some documents to report on what happened in the city earlier. But what she really wanted was the information concerning The Mask.

The woman was like a bull dog. Korra felt like she had been latched onto, and was constantly being poked by horns as Lin asked her over and over again for any specific details regarding the man. Ten minutes into the interrogation, for lack of a better term, Korra admitted that she remembered Aang had survived the encounter and what little she knew of what happened afterwards.

"Look, I'm telling you, that's all I know," Korra said. "I never saw his face, or Aang never saw…you know what I mean! I was in-_he_ was in this weird cave and restrained on a table or something. At least I think he was laying down."

"And that's all you can remember about the incident?" Lin asked.

Korra rubbed her arms and looked away from the older woman. "It's not remembering, I wasn't there. I just get these freaky…flashes sometimes. And I don't _like_ it. Those guys, they…they did something to Aang before they killed him."

The look on the girl's face made Lin hold back her next question. The Avatar had gone from single to plural. _What does she mean by they_?

But, the girl also had a point. Lin wasn't dealing with a traumatized witness that could simply have the information drawn out of her under pressure. She didn't know how the Avatar memories even worked. There was Aang's story about when he met Roku and was guided through his past that Lin had heard as a little girl, but that had been an older incarnation guiding the younger down memory lane. This seemed like something far different.

A spot of orange in the crowd of people outside told Lin this would all be coming to a close soon enough anyway. It was best to end it on a good note if she would be needing to talk to Korra in the future.

"It's alright, we can stop if you want," Lin told her. "I'm sorry this is so hard for you. But this man killed the Avatar, and there is no way I'm going to let him get away with it." She took a moment and gave the girl some tea. "By the way, I called Tenzin when I heard you were brought in. He-"

"What?" Korra exclaimed as the door banged open behind her and she looked to see the world's only Airbending master standing behind her. "Oh…hey…Tenzin." Being in a police station and all, Korra decided it was best to keep quiet about the triad fight.

The man looked at the source of his latest headache, then took a deep, calming breath before turning his attention to the woman. "Lin, you're looking as radiant as ever."

"Cut the crap Tenzin, why is the Avatar in Republic City?" Lin demanded. "You decide to move her up here to train her in Airbending?" She knew that shrill, soft, prissy, **thieving** little_…woman_ of his didn't like the cold and they had another child on the way.

Korra winced when Tenzin looked back in her direction for a moment before answering. "No. The Avatar will be returning to the South Pole tonight."

"But you can't."

Everyone in the room blinked when the reply came from both females at the same time. Not quite sure what was going on, Korra gave Lin a blank and confused look. "Uh…please tell me your reason isn't because I have to serve jail time, or something."

"Wait outside," Lin ordered. "I need to speak with Tenzin alone for a moment."

Korra moved her gaze between the two adults, then quickly figured it was best to get out while the getting was good.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Tenzin turned on Lin. "What are you playing at here Lin? Why are you wanting Korra to stay in Republic City?"

"What do you remember about the first Day of Black Fire?" Lin asked.

Tenzin frowned at the question. _What is she getting at_? "The same as you. We were letting out Yakome's trail after my father had taken away his bending for his part in leading the Traditionalist Rebellion. Then that man with the mask walked up to my father as if to introduce himself. If I hadn't lost my grip on Jojo and he hadn't flown to the Avatar's shoulder, The Mask would have killed the Avatar right then and there."

Lin nodded, it was the same as her. The man had simply walked past the bailiffs as if he was on important business, reached out to Aang and a second later Tenzin's pet flying lemur had been killed by being…_sucked_ away into thin air. Then the fight had started, and Lin had run for cover.

"Not that it seemed to make a difference in the long run," Tenzin grumbled. "And why did you decide to bring something like _that_ up?" She knew that memory was his most painful one.

"Because the current Avatar also remembers what happened that day," Lin explained, although she was interrupted before she could continue.

Tenzin shrugged. "So my father told her. The past Avatar's share their experiences with the current one when they think she needs them." It wasn't that big a deal. "I don't see why that means you think she needs to say in Republic City."

"She also remembers what happened to Aang afterwards. Your father was not killed on the first Day of Black Fire," Lin hinted.

This time, Tenzin did become interested. "_What_?"

His mind reeled at the revelation. When it had taken more than six years to find the new Avatar, they had theorized that Aang might have still been alive after what happened on Avatar Island. No one had actually seen what happened that day between Aang and his attacker. Zuko had been in too much pain and Katara had been too busy healing him. The only witness they had was Toph, who only said that Aang and the stranger simply disappeared, like they jumped into the air and never came down.

After regaining his composure, Tenzin held up his hand to keep Lin from going on. "Alright, we always that had been a possibility. But I don't see what that has to do with Korra."

"You're not listening to me Tenzin," Lin continued. "_Korra_ is the one remembering these things, she says Aang hasn't shown up once to help guide her, none of the other Avatars have. I don't know how the whole Avatar thing works, but that seems pretty damn wrong to me."

Tenzin frowned in thought. It may have just seemed wrong to Lin, but he knew it was in fact very wrong. The Avatar didn't remember things from his or her past lives directly, it was always a past Avatar that showed them. "I'll admit, that is disturbing," he grumbled, then looked back to the woman, "so you want me to…what? Investigate the Avatar's spiritual problems?"

This time, it was Lin's turn to look confused. Although to her credit, only last a few seconds. "I don't give a damn about the Avatar's problems. But what really troubles me is some group of people, and according to that girl it _was_ a group, were able to hold the Avatar for _years_, she said they did things to Aang, Tenzin. Things that make her whole body tremble when she mentions them."

She paused to take a calming breath. "My personal feelings on the mater aside, we both know there is something big coming, something that started years ago."

"That's why we decided to put the Avatar in that artic wasteland for her training," Tenzin replied. "There, she can be safe!"

"It's not just about the kid. We both know that the world's best troublemakers spend years getting ready for their big show," Lin countered. "It's been over twenty-five years, and we're still waiting for that shoe to drop. I just want to find and stop it before it happens, or at least figure out a way to keep from being squashed. That girl is our only hope for that.

"Don't bitch to me about the council, or your schedule, or your _wife_," Lin said as he pointed a finger in the man's face. "The Avatar needs to get in touch with her spiritual side so she can ask Aang what the hell is waiting for us in the wind. Because when it shows up, it's going to make the bending triads look like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. So get your ass in gear, and do your damn job before the next Ozai starts knocking down kingdoms while you're busy talking about a bunch of idiots screaming 'equality now'."

As soon as the door to the chief's office opened, Korra rose hesitantly. Thanks to the extra time, she had managed to come up with some pretty convincing arguments as to why she should be taught Airbending here in Republic City.

Tenzin came out looking tired and defeated. When he reached where she and Sasuke were sitting, he let out a depressing sigh. "Okay let's-" he stopped to look at Sasuke. "Who's this?" He did look a little familiar, but Tenzin was too tired to remember much more than that.

Korra held out her opened hand to point to Sasuke. "This is Sasuke Uchiha, from the South Pole, remember? He came to Republic City to learn about the spirit world, so I kind of pointed him your way."

_Of course_, the Airbending master thought sarcastically. He could almost hear his mother's destiny speech coming from behind him. "Well come on then, your first lesson will be bright and early tomorrow morning."

The man started to walk away from Korra, who might as well of been held up by puppet strings. "That was…weird." She looked over to Sasuke for confirmation. "So, now he wants to teach me Airbending?"

"Apparently," Sasuke replied in an even tone before standing up to follow the man with the arrow on his head.

"But…_why_?" Korra asked her traveling companion after recovering enough to walk.

"Does it really matter?" Sasuke asked her.

Korra looked over to the emotionless boy with a deadpan expression. "You never talked to people all that much before you lost your voice either, did you?"


	2. Sasuke Ch2

"So, did we win?"

With a great deal of effort, Sasuke picked his head up to look at the corpse with the short sword through its skull. The other hand was still covering the left side of his face from when Tobi destroyed his other eye a second before he died. "He's dead."

"You're sure this time right? He doesn't have another Sharingan hidden up his ass that can press the reset button again? Cause I don't think I got _another_ one of those fights in me."

"Shut up Naruto," Sasuke grumbled before he slowly stood up, propping himself up against the side of the cave to do so.

Naruto ignored the command as he slowly got to his feet, then fell flat on his face before he could even straiten his legs. He moaned at the condition of his body, and glanced over to the other shinobi. "So, what now?"

"What do you mean, what now?"

The conversation made Naruto slowly readjust himself until he was sitting up with his back against the cavern for support. Then, he spared a glance at Killer B's body for a moment before looking back at Sasuke. "I'm not stupid. You watched what's-his-face use the sealing jutsu on the eight-tails instead of undoing the paralysis on both of us so we could all take him on. Which means you know how that damn statue works now.

"I'm out of gas unless I try and use the nine-tails, but I don't even want to guess what'll happen if I go up against a Sharingan directly like that," Naruto explained. "So, what now? We finally get our big showdown?"

Sasuke smirked before he reached into his belt pouch. "Actually, you are an idiot. I'm in the same boat as you. I don't have the chakra to seal a tailed beast away, or the time. It took a month just for him," Sasuke explained he gestured to B. "And to be honest, the eight-tails host was annoying, so I just let Tobi finish him off for me." Having someone tear off part of your chest tended to make tended to make you dislike them.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Yeah right. You're not that petty. So tell me, what's going through that head of yours? You can't possibly go and destroy the Leaf now. That would mean taking on the whole world."

"Destroy the…hehe, haha, HAHAHAHAHA!" Sasuke laughed after a brief pause in his words. "Oh that's right, there's no way you could have known." A evil smile formed on his face. "The Leaf is already gone."

Exhaustion kept Naruto from jumping up in shock. All he could manage was deadly glare. "_What_? How? If B is dead, that means you had to have here the whole time. There's no way you could have attacked the village!"

After regaining his composure, Sasuke gave Naruto a confused look, then shook his head. "Oh, the village I fine. It's the people you need to be worried about. When you and the other idiot were hauled off by Tobi and myself, moral dropped considerably. On top of that, Madara had already dealt with the five kages and wiped out a good number of your troops before Itachi forced Kabuto to release his jutsu."

"Even so, there's no way those pale grass guy clones could have taken the shinobi army!" Naruto shouted right before Sasuke pulled the food pill out of his pouch and crunched down on it.

"Who says they needed to?" Sasuke replied before slowly making his way to the exit of the cave. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go burn down the Leaf Village. If it's even still there I mean."

Naruto gritted his teeth, but waited for his body to recover for another minute. He needed to buy more time. "Hey, you ever answered my question! If the Leaf is really gone," something that Naruto sincerely doubted, "what're you going to do now Sasuke? SASUKE!"

Right at the limits of Naruto's vision, and looked back. "You think this is just about the Leaf?" he asked with venom dripping from his words. "It's bigger than one stupid village. This world…the village system…I hate it… I hate everything in it… the villages that raise the shinobi…the lords that control the people…the people that fund the villages…and so I will destroy everything in it. Returning this world to nothingness, that is what I am going to do Naruto."

With his jinchuuriki powers finally fixing his body enough to stand, Naruto got to his feet and followed after the other ninja a second after Sasuke disappeared into the darkness. Unfortunately, the sound of a summoning and a loud bird's screech told Naruto he would be too late.

Chapter 2: Republic City

Korra followed Tenzin down the covered open air walkway as she headed for her first Airbending lesson.

"So, my mother tells me you've had some trouble with Airbending," the master said without looking back as he broke the ice. He could see the girl was a tense as a rock. If she didn't loosen up a bit, it was going to be a long and painful morning.

Korra sighed. "Yeah, but I don't know why. The other elements came _so _easily to me. But every single time I try Airbending…nothing happens."

Tenzin nodded. "That's perfectly alright. The Avatar often has difficulty with the element in opposition to their personality. For Aang, it was Earthbending."

"Yeah, well I'm about as opposite of an air bender as you can get," the Avatar replied, feeling downcast.

"It just takes patience and training," Tenzin assured her before continuing on. "Since you can't bend air unconsciously like the rest of us were able to do, I'm going to start you off with something a little more advanced than the simple steps and basic forms."

For some reason she didn't understand, Korra was starting to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Well I've already read a lot of the scrolls you sent to the Pole years ago that show how the basic moves work." Of course, that was a long time ago, before she had even realized that her lack of Airbending talent was a real problem instead of just difficult.

"This training has more to do with the philosophy behind Airbending than any of the actual movements," Tenzin told her. Although, he had to admit that if someone didn't know the basic Airbending steps, then they were in for a world of hurt.

Korra frowned when they came to the training ground where Tenzin's kids were waiting. Out in the middle of the square was a contraption that held more than a dozen pieces of wood about the size of a door in place on poles. She pointed to said contraption and raised an eyebrow. "What the heck is that thing?"

"A time-honored training tool for Airbenders," Tenzin told her before looking over to his eldest daughter. "Jinora, would you like to explain this exercise?"

The girl stepped forward and got ready to run through the doors, telling Korra about the training tool as she limbered up. "The goal is to weave your way through the doors without touching them."

"Seems easy enough," Korra mumbled. Although, some of the gaps looked a _little_ tight.

"Jinora forgot to mention that you have to make it through while the gate are spinning," the middle daughter added in her usual energetic manner.

With the basic explanation taken care of, Tenzin stepped forward to send a blast of air through the gates to get them spinning. Then, he released a leaf and used a gentle gust of wind to guide it through the edge of the training tool. "The key is to be like the leaf. Flow with the movement of the gate. Jinora, would you please demonstrate?"

As soon as the girl started to move through the gates, Tenzin continued with his explanation. "The key to Airbending is spiral movements. When you meet resistance, you must be able to switch direction at a moments notice. Stay calm and don't lose your serenity."

"Okay," Korra told herself. "Be calm. I am a leaf on the wind…leaf on the wind." Then, she ran strait forward.

Sasuke looked up at the sign hanging in front of the school, then checked the pamphlet he had been handed while wandering around town. While he had learned all the forms from watching Korra practice in the South Pole, the lack of basic instruction had kept him from playing around with the local style of element manipulation for fear of blowing his hands up.

There was also the other question that needed answering. His Sharingan had seen a lot of the energy came from outside sources. For a little while, Sasuke had thought that Korra had been using Senjutsu when she was performing her Firebending. There was defiantly a connection between the two methods, but the effects were a great deal less than what Kabuto had displayed in his sage mode.

Instead of drawing power from everything around them, the benders had a specific source. Sasuke had learned to do it for his Kirin technique, but he had no idea what source of power that Firebending relied upon.

Still, age kept him from simply walking up and asking someone for lessons. It became obvious from the children playing in the streets that bending was almost second nature to most people who had the talent.

Before he went in, Sasuke took a look around the area. It was no wonder the teacher was fishing for students. The small school was in a pretty dilapidated neighborhood. _I really couldn't see any parents brining their kids around here_. But, it wasn't as if he was going to be coming back with a child in tow…

The inside looked a bit more respectable than the outside, with a fire banner hanging behind the reception desk and an older woman sitting down to read the paper with Korra's picture on the cover. Apparently her just showing up in Republic City had been a pretty big deal for everyone, although she had managed to keep the event to just a press conference rather than an all out parade.

_I really am going to have to find out why everyone is making such a big deal about her one of these days_, Sasuke told himself. Was it _just_ the five/four elements that she could move around? And where did the lightning element fit in if they only counted four?

"Excuse me, is this Fong's Firebending School?" Sasuke asked while showing her the pamphlet when the woman lowered her paper to look over the edge.

The woman looked at the boy for a moment and frowned. The fact he was wearing a silk shirt of light blue and didn't have the telltale sign of a fire bender's amber eyes told her that talking to him was a waste of time. "Get lost kid, we already have a non-bender to scrub the toilets."

Sasuke forced himself to keep a neutral expression while he handed her a prepared lie. "Actually, I'm here to watch a beginner's lesson. My little brother is turning six soon, and the family is too busy to busy these days to teach him not to burn the house down."

She studied him for a moment, then simply shrugged. "Fine. The kids are set to start their learning in about ten minutes," she said before going into her standard disclaimer mode. "Be aware that Fong's Firebenders does not teach children anything more than history, breathing techniques, and basic self control for the first month. We believe that before one can bend fire, one has to respect it." Then he woman handed him a piece of paper. "Please sign this release form stating that Fong is not responsible for any injuries your child might receive as a result of his or her close proximity to the flames."

By the time he was done with the paperwork, Sasuke barely made it into the room before the teacher started talking. Luckily, it didn't seem he would be there alone. Several parents were sitting in the back, watching their children. Most of them being women, they were also whispering to each other a great deal.

"I've heard rumors that this place is supposed to be a recruitment center for the Agno Kai Triad."

"It is," another woman replied. "But where else am I going to go? Master Fong is the cheapest teacher in the city, and Kengi nearly burned down our apartment last week just playing with his bending. If this doesn't work, he's going to have to go out on the street, I can't afford to have an out of control fire bender for a son. _I_ might be in the house next time."

"I hear you. I never wanted a bender for a son either, but one night and nine months later…he's here and his dad isn't. Look into the workhouse on 27th and Roku. I heard they're looking for young fire benders."

As soon as an old man with an extremely long beard entered the room, the women quieted down. "Welcome to the first class of Firebending for the new season. Today, we will be going over basic breathing techniques, while I will be lecturing on the history of our discipline. Anyone who fails the test at the end of the week, will be expelled from the class."

"Airbend!" Korra shouted before throwing out her palms in a basic air attack…only to watch the newspaper that showed the police chief hanging on the close line in front of her remain where it was.

She took in a deep breath, and then loosened the tension on her muscles. "Okay…leaf on the wind. **I** am a leaf on the wind!" she said again before throwing another punch.

"You look pretty sore."

Korra blinked, then turned around to see Sasuke standing behind her. "Oh hey Sasuke. Where have you been all day?"

"Library mostly. They have some stupid registration system and won't let me take anything outside without waiting a week to go through the process," Sasuke explained. "So until then, I'll just have to get all my reading done there."

"Oh…" Korra almost cringed at the awkward silence between the two of them, unsure of what to ask about. It really was easier to talk to a guy when he didn't know what you were saying. _I suppose I can ask about the library…_ Although the thought didn't seem very appealing.

All in all, Sasuke's status as good catch had been in a drastic decline since the South Pole. He's gone from quiet and attentive listener, to silent and emotionless hottie, only to end up as apparently uninterested bookworm.

_Wait, was the comment about he bruises an opening or me to talk about my training_? Korra asked herself. Instead, she had asked about his day… _So, what kind of message does that send_?

_Damnit! Am I suppose to be a mind reader or something_? Korra asked any spirits who were listening. It wasn't like she had much of a social life before Republic City. A little handicap wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

The sound of a new voice in the distance drew her attention.

"_Ladies an gentlemen I'm coming to you live from Pro-Bending Arena, where the best bending teams in the world are competing for a slot in the upcoming championship tournament._"

"That's a pro-bending match," Korra muttered. It was pretty faint, but she could tell the direction. There was a small house that used to belong to some of the acolytes, but had been cleared out to make room for the White Lotus sentries.

"A wha-ugh!"

"Let's go listen," she said before dragging Sasuke along to the edge of the building. When they got to the house, Korra hesitated a moment. Tenzin had said he didn't want her watching a bending match, and while that _probably_ meant he didn't want her listening to one either, probably was a long way from defiantly.

But the guards would more than likely take Tenzin's side, so she decided to be a little discreet about it. "Let's go on the roof," Korra suggested before leaping up top. When Sasuke didn't join her a few seconds later, she looked back down at him. "Need help?" Korra supposed she could bend some rocks to use as stepping stones…although, it would be pretty loud.

Sasuke frowned at the girl. He had come over to ask with some help trying out Firebending. With the sun down and fire benders weakened, Sasuke was guessing that this was the right time to practice. He no interest in pro-bending, what he figured was some kind of game from the way it was being talked about over the radio, but the insult to his abilities made him follow along.

Korra crept to the edge of the roof, and squatted down before motioning for Sasuke to join her. "So, have you ever seen a pro-bending match?" she asked.

"No," Sasuke replied, then raised an eyebrow when Korra put a finger over her lips in a shushing motion.

"_This Mako's got moxey…"_

"Right, first time in Republic City…I forgot," Korra whispered, then glanced over to the stadium where everything was taking place for a few seconds. "This is my first time actually hearing a live match. I still can't believe the stadium is right across the water."

"…_Yomo is hammered back into zone three…_"

The statement peeked his curiosity enough for Sasuke to ask. "So why are you here listening instead of there watching?"

"…_the clock is winding down! Can Yomo hold on_?"

Korra sighed and slumped he shoulders. "Tenzin says that I can't leave the island till I'm at least able to air bend a little bit."

"_The clock is winding down! Ten! Nine! Eight! Bzzzt!"_

Both the teenagers and the guards down below frowned when the radio suddenly cut out. "What was-"

Tenzin's voce cut her off. "Korra, come down here please." Despite the please, it was an obvious command.

After Korra dropped down from the roof to face her teacher, she looked over to the radio, and followed its power cord back to the man. "Why'd you unplug it, they were just getting to the best part!"

"I thought I made myself clear! I don't want you listening to this…distracting drivel," Tenzin said as he scolded her.

Korra held up her index finger to stop him and giver her point. "Technically, you said I couldn't watch a match. You didn't say anything about listening to one."

"You know what I meant!" Tenzin exclaimed before he let out a breath to clam down. "Anyway, it's time to sleep. Head off to bed, I need to talk to your…friend."

The thought that she might have gotten Sasuke in trouble made Korra wince. "Look, don't get angry at him. It was totally my fault, I dragged him along…literally," she explained, mumbling the last word.

"Korra, off to bed," Tenzin told her. "I will not repeat myself again."

As soon as Korra was gone, Sasuke stepped own off the roof and looked at the old man, keeping his expression neutral. He was at a loss of what to do in the situation. On one hand, he didn't give a damn about whatever the old geezer said. On the other hand, if Korra _was_ connected to his final goal, Sasuke would need to stick close to her for the time being. That man controlled the island, and who could stay on it.

With little choice, Sasuke decided to play the respectful visitor for the moment. "Something wrong, sir?" he asked evenly.

"Hmm oh, well," Tenzin said as he tried to think of the best way to go about this. "First, I want to thank you for making yourself scarce during Korra's training today."

Sasuke nodded, then remembered the numerous bruises on her body. "What happened anyway? The wind element can cut and knock people around, but some of those bruises on her looked a little…square? …I guess."

"Let's just say that Korra's habit of trying to tackle a situation head on is her major problem when it comes to Airbending," Tenzin explained rather cryptically. "But that's not what I want to talk to you about. Now, Korra tells me that you're interested in the spirit world? In what way?"

"Well, it's not the spirit world per say, just…how do I put it?" Sasuke took a moment to review a lot of the information he had read earlier today on the subject as he tried to come up with a plausible lie. In the end, he settled for just going with a partial truth. "I'm looking for something, and everything I've read tells me that it will be a lot easier to find if I have the help of a spirit." All of which was true.

When the boy didn't continue, Tenzin decided to bring the answer out instead. "Which is?"

Since there was little reason to keep it secret, Sasuke just came out with it. "It's supposed to be the oldest animal in the world."

Tenzin quirked an eyebrow at that. "You're looking for the lion turtle?" he asked.

Only years of experience with having to live with a sadist before he truly hardened his heart kept Sasuke from breaking his mask of calm. "Yes," he replied. _So that's what it is_. _But what makes it so important_?

For Tenzin, all the other little facts he knew about the boy suddenly fell into place. Korra had said the boy had spent months just wandering around the sea without proper food, and probably a good deal longer when he had access to the right kinds of nutrition. "Well, I can see why you were at sea for so long. That thing may be the size of an island, but its only been seen a few times since my father's time. It moves around so much and doesn't have a migratory pattern, no one can ever pin it down."

Even the boy's appearance in the Soup Pole made sense now. What better person to contact the spirits to ask for their help than the Avatar? _Although, Korra seems to be lacking in that area as well_, Tenzin admitted to himself.

"Does this mean you can help me?" Sasuke asked, a bit of hope entering his voice at finding his first real lead on the subject.

Tenzin considered the boy's request. He couldn't see the harm in letting him see the giant sea beast. It wouldn't even take that long to travel to its location via bison. The problem was finding it; and Sasuke's chosen method _was_ extremely dangerous, if effective.

_If he's anything like Korra, he'll just go off and try something stupid on his own more than likely_, the man told himself. "Very well, I suppose I can give you a hand with finding the lion turtle."

Sasuke blinked. That had been…easier than he expected. "What's the catch?"

"No catch, although…I would like you to try and limit the amount of distraction you present to Korra while you're here," Tenzin admitted.

"You mean say away from her," Sasuke reasoned.

"Oh heavens no!" Tenzin had experienced what girls were like when something came between them and a boy. If Korra was anything like Lin… "Just…let her have her practice time in peace. And I supposed you can help keep her mind off that pro-bending nonsense…"

Sasuke gave him a short nod. "Agreed," he said before waiting a moment to try and consider just what that entailed. It wasn't a pleasant thought. "So, how long exactly do you think it will take?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll get past her problem within a month," Tenzin assured him. "We'll need to wait at least that long to get in contact with the moon spirit anyway." Upon seeing the boy's questioning glance, Tenzin decided to elaborate a little. "Oh…the moon spirit is one of the only two spirits I have come in contact with, and the easiest to talk to. She's also the best choice to help you, since she sees everything on a night with a full moon. Those are also the only nights she can manifest a form in this world. In that time period, we can easily track down the lion turtle and fly to it using my sky bison."

The man's words only made Sasuke loose confidence in Tenzin's ablates. "So, you're supposed to be some spiritual expert, and you've only had two encounters with the things?"

Tenzin cleared his throat. "Two spirits, several encounters. I've met with the moon spirit many times," he told the boy. "And besides…you have no idea how rare it is for humans to interact with the spirits. The only person alive today who can boast more spiritual encounters than me is Lord Zuko, and that's only because of his dealings with my father.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be needing to get some sleep.

The next day came and went, with Korra not having much more success with the spinning doors of pain than she did the previous day. Although, she did manage to collect a few less bruises by learning how to roll with the impacts. After the sun went down, she found herself looking across the bay to the stadium once again.

"I sooooooooo want to go see a pro-bending match!" the girl whined.

"I still don't get what's so interesting about those things for you," Sasuke mumbled. From what he understood, it was some sort of mock battle. He'd been in enough real ones to know they weren't all that exciting, at least until you were standing over the corpse of your opponent and still had all your limbs attached. Although, that was more relief than excitement.

Korra rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't understand."

Then, Korra suddenly realized that they were sitting all alone, at the edge of the island, with the arena right across the bay. A tingle ran down her spine as she gave voice to the possibilities. "We can go watch one," she mumbled.

Not hearing the words loud enough to catch them, Sasuke looked over to Korra with and frowned. "What?"

"We can go watch a pro-bending match!" Korra exclaimed. "It's right there! All we'd have to do is swim across the bay." It would be like a date! Sort of…kinda…in a way.

The disbelieving look Sasuke gave her made Korra blink in confusion. "What?"

Sasuke sighed and rubbed his nose. "Weren't you ordered to stay on the island?"

"What Tenzin doesn't know won't hurt him…or me at least," Korra added as an afterthought.

Pressed up against a proverbial wall, Sasuke considered his options. The possibility of him still needing the Avatar for something one day was still on the table, but he also needed Tenzin to find the lion turtle; a definite need. Tenzin wanted him to make sure Korra behaved, and Korra wanted to misbehave.

So he just picked the obvious solution, for a shinobi anyway…

"You go, I'll cover for you," Sasuke told her. "If we both end up disappearing, we'll be found out."

Korra didn't quite follow the logic, but she didn't try too hard upon hearing that she'd be able to go watch a pro-bending match. The fact that Sasuke was willing to run interference for her brought his potential boyfriend material ranking up a few notches. "Wow thanks!" she said before grabbing him into a bear hug and let him go a second later to jump off the cliff right as the guard patrolling the area went past. "I'll bring you back a souvenir!"

As Sasuke watched the girl plunge into the water, he got a sinking feeling that this was going to be a bigger headache in the long run than he had experienced in awhile. _If she start acting like…well, every other girl I've ever known, I think I'll stick with my Sharingan rather than spend a month waiting around here_.

He clapped his hands together, and was covered in smoke a second later.

When the guard came back, he waved at the water tribe girl, then looked around for the other boy a for a moment. "Where'd the other one run off to?"

The girl let out a yawn and stretched her arms. "I getting late, so we're heading to bed. Still on South Pole time," she explained in a monotone voice before walking off.

As soon as she was out of sight and inside the temple, 'Korra' looked down at her chest and shuffled her feat around a bit. _How the hell did Naruto put up with trans-gender transformations when he was a kid_? It just felt _weird_. The center of gravity was slightly off thanks to the breasts, and then there was the feeling down below that made Sasuke want to cringe.

The changes may have been little more than a layer of chakra crafted skin and minor spatial ninjutsu to adjust for the size, but walking around in the shell of a girl was not a pleasant experience.

-The Next Day-

Since he met up with Korra on his walk to the docks, Sasuke found himself having to reap what he sowed while he walked down to take a small boat off the island. Since Korra felt bad about leaving him behind, she decided the best thing to do about it, thanks to some weird twist of female logic, was to tell Sasuke each and every minute detail about everything that happened at the arena.

"Although, I did feel kind of bad for Bolin," Korra told him. "I mean, he looked about ready to scream with excitement when I asked for an earth disc to take home before he signed his name to the thing. Then he tried to get all cool, and nearly fell over when I said I was bringing to back home for a friend…who was a boy."

Sasuke nodded. "Yeah huh…"

The rather uninterested tone coming from the boy made Korra give him a deadpan look. "Then Fire Lord Ozai came back from the dead wanting revenge."

"Gotcha," Sasuke replied.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?" she asked.

The question made Sasuke stop, and finally turn to look at Korra. "Well, I don't really like having to listen to you talking about how great two guys I'm never going to meet are."

Korra blinked a few times as she tried to find some deeper meaning in that before sighing. "Okay, I see you point," she admitted.

Then, inspiration struck, and Korra hammered her fist into an open palm. "You should come and see a pro-bending match! I bet they can even set you up with free tickets."

The idea didn't have much appeal to Sasuke. "No thanks."

"Look, I know you're not a bender, but-"

"Wait, _what_?" Sasuke interrupted.

Korra blinked in confusion. "What do you mean what?"

"What makes you say I'm not a bender?" Sasuke asked.

In an attempt to humor him, Korra started counting down the reasons on her hand. "Well you've never bent diddly since the moment I-"

Before Korra had said more than a single word more, Sasuke took in a deep breath from his nose and drew on the elemental chakra coming from the sun before focusing it through his fists with a punch directly to his side. The fire attack sent out a short but massive gout of flame, and had Sasuke regretting being so hasty in putting theory into practice.

Korra didn't know what kept her frozen longer: that Sasuke could bend fire or the blast of flame the size of a small building that came from his attack. When she was able to move again, Korra's first action was to drop her mouth open. "You can _firebend_?" she yelled before looking over to the dock to see where it T'd off to the right had been consumed in flames.

Annoyance crossed Korra's features and she brought in a wave of water to douse the flames before it could do more than singe the wood. "Hey, watch where you're-" she stopped talking when she glanced back at Sasuke to see him vigorously shaking the hand he used to throw the attack. "Don't tell me you actually burned yourself!"

She glared at him for a moment for being an idiot, then pushed her lips together when she got an odd feeling in the back of her mind when she looked at Sasuke's face. Like something was staring at her right in the face, aside from the boy in question that is. _Well, whatever_.

Sasuke grit his teeth at Korra's comment while she pulled up some water to wrap around his hand and transmit the healing energies. _That was stupid_, he told himself. Even though he knew just about every move of Firebending by watching Korra, and the mechanics of how it worked thanks to research, this had been the first time that he had actually tried it.

Once he had been healed, Sasuke gave out a grunt of thanks then got in the boat that would take him to the mainland. He took a moment to look at the oars, and wondered how the heck could people develop something like the satomobile, and not come up with a motor for a boat.

_Then again, it's not like I know how those things work_, Sasuke told himself. There was a chance the four-wheeled vehicle needed some kind of special mineral that wasn't found back home.

After a quick goodbye, Korra gave the oversized canoe a push via Waterbending with enough force that would keep it going until it was more than halfway across the bay; further if Sasuke rowed.

Back on the island, Korra watch the figure get smaller in the distance, then mentally kicked herself. _Shoot! I forgot to tell him to wait at the arena instead of coming home tonight_. Pretty much all the boy's worthwhile objections would be rendered moot if he waited for her at the arena instead of heading there from the island first.

Korra sighed at the lost chance to go see a game together with Sasuke, but she supposed that there would always be another one. Mako's team had a real good chance of making it into the tournament.

On the way to the shore, Sasuke couldn't help but study his formerly burned hand and curse his own foolishness. The amount of fire thrown aside, he should have guessed that dealing with an elemental attack in a new way would have been dangerous. Chidori had peeled off his skin plenty of times when Sasuke was younger, and learning his first fire technique left its own share of burns.

_Looks like I'll have to go back to wearing protection_. Korra's practice sessions had shown that they had fire resistant materials that were flexible enough to move around in freely. Then there was the question of where he could find someplace to practice without causing a scene, but Sasuke already had a good idea of where to go looking for that kind of thing already.

-Later That Night-

Bolin turned to look at the door to the locker room when it heard it opening to see Korra coming in, then smiled when she closed it right behind her. "Alone again?"

At least there was some hope for something good happening tonight. With the third member of their team missing, the Fire Ferrets would have to forfeit the match and kiss any hope of playing in the tournament goodbye. For a moment Bolin through about blaming Mako for blowing up at their Waterbending teammate Hasook, but the earth bender had to admit that the brothers had been pretty much carrying the guy for most of the season.

"I didn't miss your match, did I?" she asked when she noticed another team of players in the locker room. _They only have stuff like this going on when one team is leaving and the other's gearing up, right_? Korra was pretty sure that the Ferrets were the first game of the night.

Korra was a bit later than she had planned on being, but that was only because Sasuke was apparently running late in getting back to the island. He hadn't even gotten home by the time she had to leave without him in order to make the Ferrets' game.

She turned to the team's fire bender for answers. "Hasook's a no-show," the handsome brother grumbled in response. "Without three players, a team is automatically disqualified."

The obvious answer being right in front of her, Korra pointed over to the three other players. "Well, can't you just ask one of them to fill in?"

"No. It's still before the tournament so we can still add and remove members without having to go through a big committee and stuff, but people can still only play on one team," Bolin explained.

Korra thought about it for a moment. "Welllll then, how about me?" she asked. "I'm a first rate water bender, if I do say so myself."

The brothers shared a hesitant look as they silently debated the idea.

-Meanwhile in Another Part of Town-

Sasuke rubbed the thumb and fingers of his right hand together to get a better feel of the gloves he had stolen earlier that day. The material was flexible enough to do hand signs, but it felt a little odd. Still, it had held up under testing and kept his hands from being burned…although his palms felt pretty sweaty thanks to the heat.

Now, he just needed more advanced instruction and experience along with examples of Firebending to observe more closely. Which Fong's Firebending School was more than capable of providing directions to. Sasuke checked the five small throwing kunai, single large kunai for use in close quarters combat, and full dozen shuriken in his belt pouch before going in.

When he came in the door, the old lady behind the desk looked up from the currently newspaper and frowned at him. "Piss off ya little shit. If you want to sign your brother up for classes then bring the useful member of your family here tomorrow so we can see if he's even worth bothering with."

"Is the head instructor here?" Sasuke asked evenly.

"Yeah, what's it to-" she stopped when the boy reached across to grab her left shoulder with his left hand and turned the body clockwise as he laid a haymaker with his right.

The crack that resounded in the room when Sasuke struck the side of the woman's head was quickly followed by an audible pop as her neck spun too far and broke. After the body dropped to the ground, Sasuke went to the door leading to the business's training room and kicked it open.

Inside the room, there sere six students probably a handful of years older than Sasuke looking at the old guy that he'd seen from before. Whatever they had been doing stopped as soon as the shinobi made his entrance.

The six students looked like they had been in a few fires. None of them wore a shirt, and their chest showed at least three burn marks each as well as some mostly fit bodies with a healthy amount of muscle on them.

"This is some sort of recruitment center for a gang, right?" Sasuke asked as he looked over the other young men.

The young man closest to the door, a guy probably in his twenties with a large burn on his cheek walked up to Sasuke with a sneer on his face to get right in the boy's personal space. "Yeah, we're Agni Kai you want to…oh hell, it's just some limp dick non-bender. What the fuck does a little pussy like you want?"

Sasuke hid one hand behind his back as he fought to keep an even face. "I'm just wondering, do you have to breathe in order to use your Firebending?"

The young man started to take a step back, "You want Firebending you little shit! I'll-"

Sasuke drew a small kunai and slashed it across the boy's throat, then gave him a palm strike to the chest to force the air out of his lungs and create a rather gruesome display of blood flowing out his windpipe that stunned the rest of the students into inaction.

When the man grabbed his throat and started thrashing around, Sasuke frowned at him before turning on his Sharingan. There was no flow of nature charka around the guy laying on the ground. "You should be able to cauterize that wound with your Firebending. If you can still do it, I won't even kill you."

"Sun He!" the youngest looking student shouted before he ran over towards the man on the ground, and got a throwing kunai in the back of his head for his trouble.

"It's pointless if someone tries to help him," Sasuke told them as the second student dropped dead.

"FUCKER!" One of the other students shouted before sending a blast of flame Sasuke's way.

In response, Sasuke put out his hands and attempted to perform a flam redirection he had seen Korra do at the North Pole during her Firebending test. The fire touched his gloves and slowed, then he was forced to retreat several steps towards the door to keep from being consumed before he finally pushed the flames apart at their center and sent them past him to sputter out harmlessly in the air.

_Need to learn to be faster on that_, Sasuke told himself as he surmised his performance. The real question as, how to practice it? Well, there was always the option of a shadow clone, but the thought of having to use one of _those_ techniques was infuriating.

"What the-How did you-"

To answer his next question about Firebending, Sasuke surged forward and drew his large kunai before the other students could join in the fight and sliced off the young man's nose. Then, he jumped to the next closest one and rammed his fist into the student's face to break that nose.

"Can Firebending be done if you can't breathe through your nose?" he asked.

Wong Pi, the student whose nose had simply been broken instead of fully removed, got up and took a deep breath through his mouth before trying to focus through the pain and punching at the attacker.

The eyes of everyone in the room became half-closed when the flames he shot out just curled upwards before sputtering out.

_I'll take that as a no_, Sasuke noted before he tossed his kunai into the air lazily to be able to form the seals needed for his fire technique and took a breath. _**Fire Style: Great Fireball!**_

The sphere of flame that shot from his mouth immediately consumed the two injured students. To his credit, the third managed to jab his hands into the attack and push the flames wide, only to find another layer of fire behind it that took him right in the chest and also turned him to ash a second later.

A concentrated force struck Sasuke in the side, and he absorbed the lightning before letting it disperse harmlessly around him. When the flames cleared, he turned his attention onto the old man. "And then there was one."

Fong's whole body shook in fear as he watched his lightning attack simply fizzle out around the monster that had come into his training center. The old man collapsed on his knees and clasped his hands together to beg. "Please don't kill me!"

"Is the leader of your group stronger than you?" Sasuke asked as he caught the kunai that had been tossed up earlier.

"Y-Yes," Fong stuttered.

"Tell me where he is," Sasuke demanded before he started walking closer to the old teacher.

Fong had to bite the inside of his lips to stop himself from shaking too much to talk. "We have a hideout in the western edge of the city, the warehouse district lot C. Warehouse 13 is ours. It's doubly reinforced with fire-proof walls on the inside and a thick wall on the outside to block out the sound. Every night he holds a pro-Firebending game at ten o'clock."

Since he had gotten everything he needed from the old man, Sasuke tossed his kunai into Fong's heart.

"But…why?" the old man managed to get out with his last breath.

"You take children and indoctrinate them into your own private army for the personal use of another man, and you have the _gall_ to ask me something like that?" Sasuke demanded as the tight hold he usually kept on his emotions slipped. "The real question is why am I killing you so QUICKLY!"

Before the light could fade from Fong's eyes, Sasuke rushed and grabbed the old man's head, then used chidori to send a continuous stream of electricity through his body. Fong thrashed about widely and tried to scream, causing blood to gurgle up his throat. After smoke rose from the body for thirty seconds, Sasuke let go of the corpse and headed for the warehouse district.

An hour's worth of travel later, Sasuke was leaning over the edge of the warehouse's roof to get a look inside through one of its few windows at the very top of the building. _Seventy-two people inside in all_, Sasuke told himself as he mentally listed off the locations. _Fifty three gathered around the ring, six people inside, four guards by the main door and six more walking around the crowd. _

Then he looked over to the far side of the room from the entrance at the man sitting on an iron throne. _Then there's what I'm guessing is the boss and two bodyguards_. The bodyguards looked like every other goon in the place, nothing covering the body above the waist and a few burns on their bodies.

The boss of the Agni Kai was different. He was a big man, the tallest Sasuke had seen since coming to the Four Nations. He was dressed in some kind of dark red armor with overblown shoulder guards that curled up into pointy tips on the end. Most of his face and neck was covered by a strange mask that was stylized to look like the mouth of some kind of monster, with two fancy cords of golden silk rope hanging of the sides like some kind of stylized mustache if the mouth had been real.

_Considering the numbers, I should play it safe and just leave the boss alive to study_. If he did it fast enough there wouldn't be any problems. Even the guards by the door were trying to get a view of what everyone else was watching.

That being the six people throwing short blasts fire at each other in a circle that had been marked off by chalk and divided into six parts. Since it wasn't all that important, Sasuke didn't bother trying to figure out the mechanics of the thing.

With his mind made up, Sasuke slipped inside the one room building and walked on the ceiling until he was in position to drop down by the front door. Before hitting the ground, Sasuke dealt took out the guards by the doors with four kunai to the temple.

Once he was on the ground, the six backup guards took notice of him right as he finished forming the last sign. _**Fire Style: Grand Fire Majestic Removal!**_

Flames shot from Sasuke's mouth a formed a wall that swept over the room. Like before with the fireball in the dojo, a few of the fire benders managed to redirect the first layer of flames before the wall overtook them a moment later. Two guys actually managed to part enough flames to make it through the fire, only to have a kunai end their lives a second after they touched the ground.

Then the technique reached the back of the room, and there was a loud explosion that blew a hole in the center of fire wall, causing the wall of flames to fall apart without the constant addition of fire and guiding force.

Sasuke was overtaken by surprise for a moment, then smirked. _Well it looks like coming here won't be a total loss after all_.

-Air Temple Island-

When she reached the island, Korra jumped out of the water and bended herself dry. After running into Tenzin at the arena, and him noticing her participating in a pro-bending match…which she probably should have expected since the Lotus guards listened to the sport on the radio…Korra was feeling pretty anxious about coming home.

The way he had been in the arena when she pulled herself out of the water after being knocked out of the ring hadn't been the usual about to blow up at something Tenzin. The fact that her team only won the match because of Korra using Airbending forms to dodge only made his anger seem all the more justified to her.

Korra just hoped the five minute long apology she had tried thinking up on the way back would help smooth things over. At least it would help soften the blow about her joining the Fire Ferrets on a fulltime basis. Even Tenzin wouldn't stop her from pro-bending if others were depending on her.

She hoped…

After looking around the island for ten minutes, she finally cam across Tenzin at the door training exercise yard, and winced at the sight. When Korra hadn't been able to get through the doors during her second day of practice, which amounted to about one-hundred some odd individual failures, she had lost her temper and blown most of the doors to pieces with Firebending.

Now, the air bender children were hard at work fixing it with replacement pieces.

Korra cleared her throat, and swallowed what little was left of her pride that her guilt hadn't thoroughly crushed. "Look, I'm…really sorry about…well, everything," she said before gesturing to the burnt wood. "I was really angry with myself, and I took it out on you…and your stuff."

When Tenzin turned around, Korra was surprised to see he didn't look so angry, only…sad. "I think I owe you an apology too," he replied. "I was trying to teach you about patience, but I ended up losing mine."

"So…no hard feelings?" Korra asked.

Tenzin smiled at his student. "Of course not." Then, he brought hand up to stroke his pointed beard. "by the way, you were really good out there. You moved just like an air bender."

Disbelief colored Korra's tone. "Wait, you stayed and watched the match?"

"Of course. It looks like pro-bending turned out to be the perfect teaching tool for you," Tenzin admitted.

Korra smiled. Well…I'll see you tomorrow for Airbending practice." Then, she took in a deep breath and decide that it was better to break the news to Tenzin now rather than latter. "By the way, I kind of permanently joined the Fire Ferrets, and we're playing in the opening game of the tournament in a month."

The tiny smile that had marred Tenzin's face suddenly disappeared as he let out a sigh of defeat. "I don't suppose there's any way to talk you out of this."

"Nope!" Korra replied. "By the way, have you seen Sasuke? I wanted to tell him the good news."

Tenzin frowned at the question. "He didn't go with you to see your match?"

"No."

Jinora looked way from her work and over to the older benders. "I haven't seen him on the island since breakfast."

"Ooohh, do you think he went to watch your match?" Ikki theorized. "What happened anyway? Daddy doesn't let us listen to pro-bending. Is it fun to do? Can I be a pro-bender when I get old enough?"

Korra did her best to tune the girl out as she continued to ask questions that were now directed towards her father, and considered the first question.

-Warehouse 13-

The second bodyguard dropped when Sasuke threw a hand forward to cover his mouth and release a fire blast that both cooked the back of his neck and went down his throat into the lungs. It only took a few seconds for the man to stop thrashing.

With both his bodyguards dead, the leader of the Agni Kai Triad got to his feet. "Who are you boy," the giant demanded, although the focusing mask made it sound more like a coarse whisper.

For once, Jin 'The Golden Dragon' Tong was glad that the secret weapon of the Agni Kai boss's ruined his voice to such an extent where he had to nearly shout to be heard. The boy's dragon breath fire wall technique was a level of destruction that Jin had only heard stories about during the last days of the great war, when Sozin's comet had passed overhead and strengthened a man's Firebending to near unstoppable levels.

Then there were his eyes, those oddly glowing eyes that didn't belong to a fire bender at all. After seeing the majority of his organization's muscle wiped out in less than thirty seconds by a single man, Jin had to use all his nerve to keep from shaking.

Jin couldn't help but wonder how the boy had achieved such a feat. Did he have some type of special weapon of his own? A new piece of technology to help with Firebending like the dragon mask? Or was it something old? Had a piece of Sozen's Comet fallen to Earth, and the boy picked it up?

"Don't you people have manners?" the boy asked. "You're supposed to introduce yourself before asking something like that."

The almost bored tone the boy spoke with made Jin scowl. "This is who I am, _boy_!" Jin took a deep breath through his nose, then pressed his mouth against the focusing tube and let everything go in one fierce blast.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the small sphere of flame coming at him. It was faster than any previous form of fire bending he'd ever seen, even his own fire jutsu didn't travel with the speed whatever the mad had attacked him with did. Still, he had time to twist his body out of the way, but was knocked into the air when the ball impacted the ground behind him.

Everything would have been fine, if the attack hadn't exploded after striking the ground.

He twisted in the air and rebounded off the wall in time to see the Agni Kai boss breaking in for another attack right before the sphere came at him again. This time, Sasuke threw a shuriken to intercept the move and it exploded prematurely, giving Sasuke time to reposition himself back in the center of the room with a few quick steps.

When the man fired his next shot, Sasuke countered with a minor fireball jutsu, only to watch the flaming orb tear through Sasuke attack without detonating. This time, he jumped backwards and curled up to ride the explosion away from the other fighter, rolling with the impact to lessen the damage.

"Fool!" Jin shouted as loud as he could with the focusing mask on. "There isn't a fire bender alive who can match my dragon's combustion bullet!" It was the perfect mix of modern technology and Firebending, the idea taken from a powerful fire bender who had lived at the end of the great war and redesigned so that the user didn't need a hole drilled into his head and years of practice to focus his chi properly.

_So the attack only detonates when it strikes something solid_, Sasuke surmised. _But why does it explode_? He had a working theory, but there was another test he needed to run in order to prove it. Switching to a jutsu he had less experience with, Sasuke threw his hands together a few times, then drew in a breath after forming the tiger right as the triad boss drew in breath for another attack. _**Fire Style: Great Dragon Fire!**_

When then boss fired again, Sasuke breathed out a charka-laced fire blast that took the shape of a dragon's head. As the two attack collided, the dragon actually opened its mouth to swallow the fire bullet, then continued on to ram into the triad leader and knock him through the wall and washing over his body before ascending into the sky.

Laying outside the warehouse among the rubble, Jin tried to pick himself up, but his burned body screamed in protest and caused him to collapse. "My…my bullet…how?"

"It's simple really," the boy with the red eyes told him as he stood over the defeated man. "Your attack is really nothing more than a highly condensed flame wrapped in a kind of vacuum bubble that air flows around, which accounts for its speed. When that bubble pops, air rushes in and the oxygen is ignited, creating a powerful explosion. While it would cut through a normal flame thanks to the bubble, and explode when running into a fire wall since it still had oxygen to burn behind it, the insides of my dragon are nothing but tightly packed fire. With no air to feed on, it just fizzled out.

"It's a nice technique though, so I think I'll take it," the boy finished.

Jin didn't have the strength to laugh at the child's absurd claim. "Idiot, only someone with the mouth of a dragon can use that attack. Each mask must be hand crafted to fit each individual, as well as seared onto the flesh. Even if you take this mask, you'll never be able to use it."

In response, the boy put his hands in front of his chest as if holding something, then he took a breath through his nose while moving his hands in a strange way. It took a moment for Jin to realize he seemed to be tracing the outline of a sphere with his fingers. A flame appeared in the center of the sphere, and was forced in on itself as the outline grew smaller.

Jin's eyes widened at what he was seeing. In the middle of an unsteady sphere of blue energy, a fire bullet came to life. "T-that's impossible!"

"You know, I don't know what pisses me off more," Sasuke began. "That even after traveling around the world, I find the same kind of crap I thought I left behind, or that I'm actually using a piece of an idiot's technique which I swore to myself I'd never bother using after seeing how it was done!"

"NO WAIT!" Jin shouted as panic set in and he put he hands up in front of his face for protection.

"**Fire Style: Blazing Rasengan**!" Sasuke shouted before throwing his hands out and letting part of the chakra sphere disappear to shoot the combustion bullet in the direction that he wanted, tagging the triad leader right in the head and blowing him to pieces.

When he got back to Air Temple Island, Sasuke was relieved to find that everyone except the guards had already gone to sleep. He had nothing to explain the reasons for the scorch marks all over his clothing, although he had the sense to ditch the Firebending gloves in the bay so people didn't ask where he got them from.

After making his way to his room, Sasuke found himself look out the window and into Republic City. When he had first come to this land, he hadn't given much of a thought about the inhabitants. Yet, if Sasuke was to carry out his plans then everyone in the city, the continent, and the surrounding lands would be caught up in the destruction as well.

Killing a few innocent people for the sake of justice for his clan was worth the cost. But from what he could tell, the amount of people living in the Four Nations far surpassed that of the Shinobi Countries. Even with a war that lasted one-hundred years to help cut the populace down to size. They obviously weren't very efficient killers if the Agni Kai were any indication.

Still, how could he justify doing nothing when the corpses of his family still haunted his dreams and cried for retribution? Not all of the people in these lands were innocent either. In fact the triad recruitment process played along disturbingly similar lines to those of a shinobi village: raise a child with a sense of duty towards an organization, and they'd have a fanatically loyal follower ready to betray his own family at the drop of a hat.

Perhaps it was nostalgia, or the technique he had used earlier that night, but Sasuke found himself thinking about that idiot blond half a world away. Then, Sasuke frowned at his own weakness. "It's not like I wouldn't know what he would try to do."

-Meanwhile, on the other side of the world-

"Hey you brat! I'm not paying for this!" the man said angrily as he shoved the ramen back into his server's face.

"Oh yeah, why not?" Naruto demanded leaning over the counter of the extra large Ninja Noodles noodle cart.

"You just SNEEZED ON IT!" the customer yelled.

Naruto crossed his arms and 'pffted' at his customer's baseless complaint, then pointed to the ninja mask that covered everything but his eyes and hid his identity as the last living jinchuuriki. "What do you think these are for buddy?" he asked. "Ninja Noodles guarantees that you will never find a hair, fingernail, or other body part in your ramen that isn't yours, or its half off!"

The customer blinked, then looked at the name of the cart before going back to glaring at the boy. "If your called Ninja Noodles, then why does your guarantee only include ramen?"

"What else would people ever want to eat?" Naruto asked, genuinely confused.

In order to diffuse the situation, another person dressed as a ninja, this one a girl with short brown hair, kicked Naruto out of the window and into the cart's third occupant before trying to clam down their customer. "Well sir, we also serve oden, and several other dishes. Ramen is just out most popular seller. And our ninja masks _do _double as sneeze guards," Akane assured him as she pulled up her cloth over her nose.

Then, he studded he girl, and the two other employees wearing ninja costumes. "And you're not _real_ ninja are ya?" There was a pretty big bounty on information leading to the capture of shinobi from one of the former five major villages.

"We're Leaf Academy flunkouts sir," Akane told him, which was true in her case, if not for the other two. "You could turn us in, but I'm afraid you'd be the only one getting in trouble. The last guy who tried fingering us to some grass ninja, well…I really shouldn't ruin your apatite with the details."

The man studied the girl for a moment, then took his food and headed on down the road. As soon as he was gone, Akane whirled on the other two real ninja. "Naruto, how many times have I told you not to pick fights with the customers. Geeze, when I agreed with my dad to help you guys with your cover, I didn't think you'd try and blow it at every opportunity."

"I know, I know," Naruto relented. "It's just…this sucks!" A little over three months ago, all of the major nations had united to fight the Akatsuki. Then, when the battle was just about over, they had been attacked by _another_ shinobi alliance consisting of all the smaller villages. Even the Hidden Rain Village had been in on it…although Naruto had since learned that paper girl had died some time after Nagato, and the village had been retaken by the original rain ninja.

With the vast majority of the ninja from the five bigger powers either in no shape to fight or dead, the fresh army had bulldozed over them before breaking up their alliance. Now, a new Shinobi World War was being fought to decide who got which lands.

"A ninja that hates hiding…are you sure we're even related?"

Naruto looked over to glare at their resident redhead and medical ninja, Karin with a frown, "Hey, _you're _the one that said you were an Uzumaki when I found you in that stupid cell back at the Leaf Village!"

Then, he crossed his arms and grumbled. "Not that you've been much help." Just what _was _Karin to him anyway? She _said_ that his mom and her aunt were sisters…or something like that…so what did that make the kids?

"Ugh! If you'd had any idea just how many patrols we've avoided because I came along!" Karin yelled. "You're the idiot who want us looking for a needle in a haystack. I say we just find a nice little corner of the world to settle down in and rebuild the clan."

Naruto resisted the urge to throw up. "Uh, aren't we related?" He could almost _hear_ the banjo in the distance for even thinking about that.

In response, Karin nailed the blond ninja on the head. "NOT LIKE THAT!" the other Uzumaki shouted, then shuddered at the thought.

After recovering from the blow, Naruto picked himself up and rubbed his sore head before a melancholy tone crept into his voice. "Even if we did that, it wouldn't be long until everything came to an end. We need to find Sasuke."

Karin rolled her eyes. "Oh right, that whole Armageddon thing. Look, your whole stupid bromance aside, just what the hell makes you think Sasuke is even physically _capable_ of carrying out something like that?"

_The zombie Madara Uchiha looked down at Naruto's shadow clone with a pair of Rinnegan_…

"Personal experience," Naruto told her.

-?-

Sitting at an announcer's desk in front of a pink cutesy background, and deformed cutesy Ino cleared her throat. "And now it's time for….NINNNNNNNNNJAAAAAA CHANNEL!"

"Hello people I'm Ino Yamanaka, and this is my co-host…" she stopped and frowned when the camera panned over to reveal…no one.

"Ahem…HERE IS MY CO-HOST!" the girl shouted before crossing her arms and tapping a finger against her arm impatiently as she waited.

Eventually, a smoke bomb exploded next to her, and the cloud cleared to reveal Kakashi. "Sorry, guys, I got lost on the way here."

Ino glowered at the older ninja, then took a deep calming breath, and turned back to the camera with a fake smile on her face. "Right. Now as to the question on everyone's minds…why would a magnificent beauty like me have yet to appear in this cheap piece of work. Well my loyal fans, it's because a super star like me is obviously being saved for a true dramatic-"

"It's because we're dead," Kakashi cut in.

"Eh?"

"In the fan fiction I mean," Kakashi told her before he addressed the camera. "If the eight and nine-tails were captured, that means Guy and I are pushing up daises somewhere. As for Ino, her death isn't that big a shocker and she is the most popular female characters among the dead Naruto cast whose won't reveal even minor plot points in the story."

Tears ran down Ino's face. "But…how did I die?"

Kakashi shrugged. "No one really cares," he told her before addressing the audience again. "Now, for those of you who haven't figured it out, it's about four and a half months into the future of the Naruto storyline after the war ended on a good note for the alliance. We beat Akatsuki, stopped the…whatever the hell they were doing, and saved the world. Then a shinobi army consisting of ninja from the other lesser villages killed most of the five villages' remaining ninja, destroyed the five major villages themselves, and are currently hunting for important survivors of the war including Naruto, since he's the last living jinchuuriki."

"Sure I was right in the middle of the battlefield, but I'm a medic…and we were winning in that area!"

Ignoring his co-host's breakdown, Kakashi went on. "The dead Madara defeated the five Kages before the resurrection technique was released. I mean let's face it, five wood clones per Kage when they could barely take one? They're fucked. In fact, if you think about it, the only thing that's even kept my character around this long is plot armor made from popularity."

"Anyway," Kakashi continued. "Sasuke went back to the village to read the instructions on that stone meant for Mangekyo Sharingan users, and took off. Naruto showed up later, let Karin out of jail, and now they're looking for him while disguised as a traveling ramen salesman business."

"SO HOW CAN THEY JUST GO AND KILL ME OFF?" Ino demanded as she went on a rampage around the set. "IT MAKES NO SENSE! WHY? WHY ME? IF I'M DEAD THEN THERE'S NO WAY SAKURA SURVIVED! GET HER IN HERE TO HOST THIS DAMN SHOW!"

Kakashi sighed, then had the propter show him Ino's card. "So, join us next time as Amon finally shows up, and we learn that one of the kages is actually still around. Byeeeeeeeeee!"

"I HATE YOU ALL!" Ino raged, fire spitting from her mouth as several security personal tried to pin her down.


	3. Sasuke Ch3

Gaara's legs gave out from under him. Madara's last attack had been a pain to stop, but he had managed it by using the extra blood-soaked sand that comprised his gourd. It would buy him a few more seconds, until the next clone tried to kill him.

_I really shouldn't be thinking like that_, the Kazekage told himself before he moved the sand he was resting on to avoid an attack from the Madara clone's Susanno in front of him before temporarily pinning the chakra golem's arm that tried to crush him with restraints of normal sand.

Still, since Madara had created five wood clones per Kage, it had been all he could do just to remain on the defensive. On top of which, inch by inch, the clone's attacks were getting closer and closer to finishing him off.

Even with the reserves that hosting a tailed beast for the early part of his life had left him with, going up against two legendary opponents back to back had almost completely drained him. They had only been dealing with Madara for five minutes, but every part of Gaara's body was already screaming for him to stop.

A cry of pain to his right grabbed Gaara's attention for a moment, and he looked over to see that Tsunade had been caught by the multiple Susanno, with one holding each of her limbs, and the fifth clone using one of his chakra construct's hands to wrap around her neck.

The Raikage wasn't faring much better. His speed had kept him a step ahead of the clones, but the moment he attacked one and punched a hole through its chest, the double grabbed onto him and its feet transformed into roots. Then its whole body came a medium sized tree that held the man in place. A second later, another clone appeared behind the Raikage to latch onto his arm before it could be freed, and the man's lighting armor was sucked away before a third clone came in from behind him to finish the man off.

The Mizukage was doing a little better than the others thanks to her long-range area effect techniques, but she was steadily loosing ground. In fact, the only one who seemed to at least be close to equal ground with his opponents was the Tsuchikage, whose superior mobility thanks to his flight techniques kept him out of range of most of Madara's attacks and let him dodge the ones that were sent his way.

The two screams of pain that came from the direction of their close-combat fighters nearly broke Gaara's concentration, which nearly ended up proving fatal when the clones attacked him from three different directions. He managed to bob and weave his way between them, but clenched his teeth when the two other clones assigned to him appeared in front of Gaara with lightning crackling around them in preparation to strike.

_No!_ Gaara thought as he tried to gather up enough of his red stand to wrap around their legs and throw them back. He was rather surprised when the clones that had him dead to rights suddenly stopped long enough to make it work.

In fact, all the clones had stopped moving…and then retreated to form a circle around the original. A light shot out of the real Madara, and he looked to the sky.

"No! I will not die yet! NOT UNTIL I'VE KILLED YOU ALL!"

Gaara looked up to Madara. He had been expecting to see someone sealing the original away, only…he was greeted to the sight of Madara's body falling apart as he clasped hands together, followed by all the clones doing the same.

"What's going on?" the Kazekage mumbled.

"If I had to guess, the Impure World Resurrection is being undone," Shikamaru told the him after he made his way to Gaara. "Looks like…uh…who did we have assigned to finding this technique's controller anyway?"

Gaara gave his approximation of a shrug. "Don't look at me. All of our sensors were told to keep an eye out, but I haven't received any reports on the matter. Of course, I've been a little busy to receive anything."

"So what is he-" Shikamaru stopped talking when everything fell under shadow. _Again?_ he thought before looking up to see a meteor coming down from the sky… "Oh shit."

…and a second one to the far west…

…and another to the east…

…and the north…

"How much you want to bet there's at least one of those per clone?" the leaf ninja asked. _Crap, so what's what Madara did before he died. We could barely stop one of those, and an indirect hit caused massive casualties._ Shikamaru wracked his brain to try and come up with something, _anything_ that would allow at least some of there people to survive.

A second later, the Tsuchikage landed beside the other two ninja, and formed the seals to create more than a dozen earth clones. "It's going to take the last of my chakra, but I'll slow them down as much as I can," he told them before taking off into the sky.

Mei, the Mizukage, nodded at the old man. "In that case I'll order our men to retreat to a safe distance. If you can buy us enough time-"

"Don't bother," the older Kage told her. "I got a much better look at the surroundings up there. Madara has formed fifteen of these things spaced out all around us. The impact radius of all of them together will be disastrous. This entire country is going to be nothing but a hole in the ground in less than two minutes, and my clones will disappear when they run out of chakra."

Mei looked own at the ground for a moment as the old man and his clones took to the sky again, then threw out he hand to point to a communication squad shinobi. "You! Patch me in with the army, have all Earth Style users create underground impact shelters. If they're deep enough-"

While the Mizukage gave her commands, Shikamaru continued to watch the Tsuchikage fly into the sky and intercept the meteors, and let out a depressed sigh when it crashed through the clouds, barely slowing down. It was a disturbing sight, but it did give him an idea.

"Wait," he told the older woman. When the Mizukage stopped to glare at him for his interruption, Shikamaru did his best to ignore the killing intent sent his way. "You've got it backwards. There's no fortification we can build that can take a direct hit from those things. We need to avoid them."

Gaara looked over to Shikamaru and cut in before the woman could go ballistic from being interrupted. "How?"

"Have everyone who can perform a summon for something big enough to fit a person in its mouth call their animal and climb in so they can teleport away," Shikamaru explained before looking over to Gaara. "Can you still move sand?"

"Only the kind already soaked with my chakra," Gaara told him.

The biggest hope for the army's escape just dwindling to a hundred at most made Shikamaru groan in anger. "Levitate as many people as you can carry into the sky and past those things. Anybody who has a summon who can fly, bring it out and reach safety, and…that's all I got. If anyone's gone some kind of ultimate barrier jutsu, now's the time to pull it out."

Chapter 3: Inequality

Korra opened her eyes to the dawn's light, then groaned and rolled over in her bed to keep the sun from roasting her optic nerves; or the sun's reflection anyway. The fact that the only reason she was getting up like this was because she had moved her mirror to catch the sun's morning rays made everything even more painful.

_Stupid Mako and his 'Our practice is at eight' crap_, Korra thought before she felt Naga come over to her bed and start poking Korra with her nose.

With the help of her dog's prodding, Korra managed to roll out of bed and get dressed to face the day. When she got downstairs, Korra found most of the acolytes were already in the communal breakfast area, although Tenzin wasn't there yet.

She knew he had to split his duties between temple master and father, but the old man was usually waiting for her when she got downstairs. Of course, she was never up this early before.

A minute after she sat down, some of Tenzin's students came to give her a cup of tea and a bowl of rice with fish in it. Once they had the table set, the Avatar watched Tenzin finally came in the door with a paper in hand. "Did you seriously fly all the way to the city for a newspaper?" Korra asked after he greeted everyone.

_Then again…I always wondered how they got one here so early_, she thought.

"The news is important…and they want to charge too much for delivery to the island," he admitted before sitting down at the breakfast table and opening the paper to thumb through it.

A few moments later, his wife Pema came in the room to give him a tray of food and have a short conversation with some of her friends sitting behind Tenzin while he looked through the morning news.

"Oh dear."

The rather depressing way Tenzin spoke drew Korra's attention. "Something wrong."

"It's nothing," he assured her. "Just someone bought space for another Equalist article."

Korra frowned. "A what?"

Once he had scanned over the title to get the just of it, Tenzin looked back to the Avatar. "Oh, it's just that no one is willing to print their…_opinions_ in any of the papers so they buy add space and print their rabble rousing inside of it." It did make Tenzin wonder where these dissidents were getting the money for such things. For a moment the horrid thought that it was done through donations crossed his mind, but surely they couldn't have collected enough support for everything they did that way, could they?

"No I mean, what's an Equalist?" Korra clarified.

Tenzin set down his paper and looked over to the Avatar to make sure she was actually serious.

Seeing his obvious confusion, Tenzin's wife went to place the food on the table as she answered the obvious question. "I don't think they have much reach outside the city dear, so Korra's probably never heard of them."

"Heard of _who_?" Korra demanded, getting more than a little agitated at a lack of an explanation.

"It's a group of non-benders that claim people like you and I are oppressing them," Tenzin explained. "For the most part they just hand out pamphlets and publish things like…_this_ in newspapers and magazines."

Their latest one being a 'shocking' exposé on Republic City's criminal underworld. It went on and how all the major gangs in the city were nothing but benders while the vast majority of non-bending criminals were caught easily; and even went so far as to accuse the justice system of playing favorites to anyone who could read between the lines.

Korra immediately put in her two cents on the issue. "Well that's just stupid! No one's going to buy that!" Then she frowned at Tenzin. "Don't tell me these idiots were the reason you didn't want to leave this place."

The girl's rather simplistic view of the world made Tenzin smile, if only things were that easy. "True, but they do manage to pain a convincing picture. Think about it for a moment. Benders like you and myself do possess an advantage over non-benders. That simple fact helps breed jealousy, and with that clouding their minds, they are willing to believe things like the reason no benders sit on the council is because the council is for benders only. It escalates from there to them saying something such as because we're all benders, that we're oppressing non-benders. From there, it turns to because we're different, we cannot co-exist."

"But that's _stupid_!" Korra exclaimed, repeating her earlier statement with a bit more strength. "You're on the council, shouldn't you do something to stop them from saying that cra-" she stopped and glanced down at the monks and Pema, "stuff like that?"

Tenzin raised an eyebrow. "So you want me to…what? Oppress them? They are entitled to their opinions after all."

The question made Korra scrunch her face up in anger. "What?… No! That's not what-I mean… But you can't just let them say stuff like this."

"And in doing so I would fall right into their trap," Tenzin told her. "At the moment, all they're doing is printing things such as this and handing them out. They are entitled to voice their opinions, no matter how foolish they are. If I were to stop them from doing so, it would add the only real weight their arguments can hold by making what they're saying true."

Of course, they were suspected of doing other things. Lin had brought the council reports that the Equalists were supposedly training chi-blockers, but even that in and of itself wasn't illegal. In fact, they didn't seem to have any ties to the criminal activity of the city as far as she could tell.

"But there must be _something_ we can do about this kind of stuff," Korra said.

Tenzin nodded. "So now it's we, eh?" he asked. "Korra, this was the very reason I didn't want you coming to Republic City. You are the Avatar, and despite your age, people put more weight into your actions and opinions then even my own. Speaking out against them is all well and good, but when words become action, everything changes."

"Well-"

"And in this case, doing 'nothing' as you put it, _is_ the correction action," Tenzin explained. "I have faith that people will see this movement for what it truly is, and turn away from it on their own."

The rest of breakfast was a subdued affair, with teacher and student finishing their meal with only a dozen interruptions from the acolytes asking Tenzin for instructions on how to deal with the various issues that came with running a temple.

When she was done eating, Korra was treated to the sight of Sasuke coming downstairs. His hair was oddly disheveled and the circles under his eyes told Korra he hadn't gotten enough sleep; much like her. Strangely enough, she was glad the guy who'd kept her up worrying about him a good thirty minutes before he actually arrived on the island had an even worse morning than Korra.

"Hey Sasuke, I'm heading to the mainland. We could go together if you want."

Sasuke didn't even bother looking at her to reply. "Fine. Let's go."

A bit put off by the less than enthusiastic response, Korra watched Sasuke drag himself to the door. _Maybe he's just not a morning person_, she told herself.

The boat ride was also disturbingly quiet…despite attempts at conversation.

"So, what happened last night? You came in pretty late," Korra told him.

At first Sasuke just shot her one of the glares that seemed to be his usual expression as of late, then his expression softened with some obvious effort. "I…got lost. The city is harder to navigate at night."

With that being the only words they shared on the whole ride over, Korra tied up the small boat at the docks and took a second to tell Sasuke she'd be swimming back to the island so he could use it whenever he needed to head back.

After they separated, Korra headed to the pro-bending arena to start morning practice while Sasuke…went wherever the heck he went in the city. Korra hoped he wasn't _still_ going to the library.

"Mind if I ask you guys a question?" Korra said as she tossed the medicine ball to Bolin.

After he caught the thing, Bolin tossed it to his brother. "Sure thing. What's on your mind?"

Before Korra could ask, Mako cut her off by tossing the ball at her chest. "This is a training session. So need to be focused on _training_."

She took a moment to frown at him in consideration. What was it with cute guys? Mako was the same as Sasuke with the way he seemed to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

"It's called multitasking. Women can do that better than guys," Korra told him before sending it back hard enough to knock the other player back. "But tell me, what does it mean when a guy won't talk about himself, his past, and is gone all the time? Is he playing hard to get, or what?"

The bending bothers looked at each other for a moment, with Bolin being the one to break the silence. "Guys can play hard to get?" When Mako simply gave him a confused look and shrugged, he turned back to Korra.

"Sorry Korra, but I'm not sure if the two of us are compatible," Bolin said while doing his best to strike a princely pose.

Completely ignoring Bolin's joke, Korra turned to look at Mako. "Seriously, what do you think?" At the South Pole he had pretty much tagged along wherever she went, but they might as well have been strangers now that they were in Republic City.

"_Training_," Mako repeated before tossing the ball back to her.

Korra pressed her lips together as she caught the ball and prepared to throw it to Bolin. Only, she paused when the door to the gym opened to admit a man in some pretty fancy clothes.

-Republic City's Public Library-

Sasuke looked over the five books that formed a small pile in front of him with disappointment before he raised his head to the female assistant librarian Ling. "So these are all the books you have on past Avatars?"

"No, we have more," she replied. "But these's are the ones that fit your criteria. You said you only wanted the most comprehensive studies, and only one per avatar."

"They don't look very old," Sasuke commented after he picked the top one up, a full biography of Avatar Aang.

The woman crossed her arms and frowned at the boy's comment. "Well, we're hardly an ancient library. Even if you go back to the founding of the orginal city, it's only one-hundred years old. We don't have any source documents from before then. If you want something like that, I would suggest visiting Ba Sing Se. The Cultural Preservation Society is about the only thing that has documents from before the war. I suppose the Northern Water Tribe might also have something, but that isn't really a climate for storing scrolls long term. There really isn't much in the way of ancient historical texts."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the venom in the woman's voice. "So why is there such a shortage of history books?"

"Two reasons really. During the war, the Fire Nation went about trying to re-write history, and attempted to get rid of anything that argued with what they said," she explained. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the Fire Nation's choice to invade. The end result of Republic City was worth it in my opinion, but…it would sure be a lot better if we had the full story of what actually happened before the war instead of just little bits and pieces."

As he listened to the woman talk, Sasuke gathered up the books. "And the second reason?"

The woman didn't seem to hear him, having gone off on one of her historical rants. "Before the war, no one would have ever even dreamed of a place like this," Ling continued. "I went to school in Ba Sing Se, so I was able to read about what the world was like before the war using firsthand accounts. Let me tell you, it wasn't the paradise everyone who grew up in the last hundred and fifty years thought it was."

A bit intrigued, Sasuke nodded at the woman for her to continue on. "What do you mean?"

Ling seemed to think about it for a moment, then motioned for Sasuke to come sit at one of the reading tables in the back of the room before she began. "Well it wasn't open warfare or anything like that, which probably would have been considered paradise after generations of war, but they weren't sitting around a table sharing meals and ideas either. Each one of the nations simply pretended their best the others didn't exist.

"Take Chin the Conqueror for example," Lin continued. When she saw Sasuke had no idea who she was talking about, she gave a brief explanation. "He was a Earth Kingdom warlord who tried to take over the continent. He actually managed to get his hands on more than half of it before the Avatar stepped in and killed him. Even then, half of the historians out there think she only did it because he was bothering her hometown. Meanwhile, all the other nations saw this guy just swallowing up more than half the world and just shrugged it off because it was an internal dispute."

"Is that a fact?" Sasuke asked as he tried to sound interested. He really didn't care much for the history of the Four Nations aside from a few important details here and there, but keeping in good relations with the woman who knew the library like the back of her hand was useful. That meant paying attention and giving her words weight.

Lin shook her head. "If you look at the last war, you see that the Fire Nation ran right over the Earth Kingdom for years before the Southern Water Tribe intervened, and even that was only after most of their benders had been captured. The Northern Water Tribe just kept to themselves and repelled a few invasions every couple dozen years. They didn't do anything to even help the southern tribe until the Avatar showed up."

Bored with the conversation, Sasuke tried to guide the woman to getting to her point. "So, what're you getting at exactly?"

Ling paused a moment, then leaned in closer to talk quietly. "If you ask me, this whole Four Nations thing is a total scam. The only real difference between any of us is the benders, and what they can do. Their stupid whose better than who arguments have been the cause of every major problem in history. It would be so much simpler for the world if they were all out of the picture. Then, normal people like me and you could live in peace, and the whole world could be like Republic City. Just look at what we've been able to do without those damn benders getting in the way. Technology has progressed further and faster in the past seventy years than it has in the past thousand."

The anti-bender sentiments stirred something in the back of Sasuke's mind. They sounded disturbingly familiar to some of the Ninja Countries feelings surrounding those people with special bloodlines.

"Okay…but didn't the Avatar make this city?" Sasuke asked.

"That's just what they want you to think," Ling told him. "See, Republic City was originally a collection of towns that the Fire Nation had seized control of at the start of the hundred years war, and managed to hold onto for the entire century. Then that damn Avatar showed up with the idiot Fire Lord Zuko, and they told people who'd been living here for three generations to get the hell out and that their homes no longer belong to them. All for the sake of _balance_.

"It was only after Zuko was nearly killed by the son and daughter of the colony's lord in an assassination attempt that they even paid attention. Even then, the only reason that they even bothered to care was because one of them was a damn fire bender, and the other was a rotten earth bender; a brother and sister who bent _different_ elements. It didn't matter that thousands on non-benders were getting uprooted, but oh spirits forbid if two attempted murderers lost their homes because of the _wise_ Lord Zuko and the _noble_ Avatar Aang. Then, they just decide to 'found' a town that was already there, change its name, and have us build statues in their honor for nothing. They even brought in that blighted Water Tribe, who had no connections to this city whatsoever."

Sasuke frowned at the young woman from Ba Sing Se. "I…see."

"But, a time for change is coming," she said before looking around, then leaning in closer to Sasuke. "Have you heard of the Equalist movement?"

"The what?" Sasuke asked.

-Air Temple Island-

Korra walked out of the island bath house in fresh clothes, clean from her morning practice, with the Fire Ferrets team's latest problem weighing on her mind. Mako had said he would handle the problem, but that didn't stop Korra from worrying about it.

They needed money to enter the tournament…money they didn't have. In fact, Bolin and Mako were actually sleeping above the arena in some shabby apartment they rented out from the arena's owner.

_I wonder if Tenzin can give us a loan or something_, she wondered. The guy obviously had some money, or he wouldn't have been able to a place like the Air Temple stocked with food and in good condition. Other than that, she really didn't have anything in the way of ideas.

"Well, time for practice," she mumbled to herself. All she seemed to do anymore was train, and the irony was that all this training was ending up a waste. Korra had yet to throw a single gust of wind, and the time spent adapting her fighting style to play in pro-bending would be for nothing if they couldn't come up with thirty thousand yuans by the end of the week.

It was more than a little disconcerting.

The sight of Sasuke walking towards the house brought Korra out of her downward spiraling thoughts and into confused curiosity. "What're you doing back so early?" she asked.

Sasuke stopped and looked at her for a moment, taking a minute before he spoke. It was one of the weird things she'd been noticing about him lately. "They don't have anything that interests me anymore."

Korra wondered what he could have read through in the short time they'd been in Republic City, but didn't bother to ask. "Whatever, I'm off to train." Although she was unsure just how sitting around doing nothing for two hours thinking about air was supposed to be considered training. At least she had manage the forms well enough the other night so getting through the spinning gates wouldn't be such a pain.

"Well if you're going to be here, then can you take care of Naga for me?" she asked with an apologetic smile. "I think the monks are getting a little tired of putting up with her all day."

The look Sasuke gave her was his usual 'you must be kidding' kind of stares, but then he sighed and waved goodbye after heading into the temple. "Fine."

Meditation went pretty much as Korra expected it to. She sat around and thought about air for two hours, or tried to anyway, the problem of the entry fee kept coming back to haunt her. Then came time for lunch, followed by the return of her gate training. However, it was a different than the last two days. While she didn't follow the air bender forms, Korra did manage to dance through the turning gate without getting pummeled. After a few more runs, she was able to integrate more and more steps from the Airbending school instead of simply flowing through the gates as best she could.

Thankfully, Ikki and Jinora were more talkative that most of the other people she'd been around. Of course all they wanted to talk about was her pro-bending career and her team, which made her think about the money problems even _more_.

By sunset, she had gone through the gates so many times without stopping to avoid discussing the matter Korra was in even worse shape then when she left the bending gym. After completing the circuit for what had to be the two hundredth time, the Avatar needed to grab her knees just to keep from falling over.

_Why is it the only thing I seem to do anymore is train_? Korra asked herself. The South Pole hadn't been this bad, and the only real purpose of that place had been to teach her bending.

When Jinora and Ikki craned their necks to the left to look past Korra, she blinked in confusion. "Hey he's wearing a scarf," Jinora muttered. "Ohhhh Korra, is that your super cute fire bender teammate? The one that drives you _crazy_?"

Korra looked back to see what the hell had gotten their attention, then flinched. Why was it every time she ran into Mako, he either didn't have time to talk, or she was so covered in sweat that hanging out with him would be a _real_ bad idea.

"Does he drive you crazy n a good way?" Ikki asked. "Or does he drive you crazy like you _like_ him?"

The thought of the two air benders anywhere _near_ Mako with the mischievous mood they were in made Korra panic and send them flying with an Earthbending technique right underneath their feet. Being air benders, they both just floated down to the ground a few feet away and giggled at Korra's uneasiness.

With the kids dealt with, Korra turned her back on them and did her best to make her voice sound steady. "Oh, hey Mako…what's up?"

"You seen Bolin?" Mako asked.

_Lack of manners…another cute guy trait_, Korra told herself. "No, I haven't seen him since this morning…and it's nice to see you too by the way." She wondered what made him think Bolin would even come to the island in the first place for. "What's wrong?"

"It's just he's not at home, and he's got a knack for getting into stupid situations." The way Mako grit his teeth and looked away said that he didn't like admitting it. "I was hoping he came here to…never mind. Well see you around," he told her.

Korra pressed her lips together pensively. _Bolin is missing_? She walked quickly to catch up with him. "Wait!"

Mako looked back, but didn't stop moving. "What? Look, if he's not here then I got to hurry and catch the ferry before it leaves."

"I could help you look for him," Korra offered.

The ridiculousness of the offer almost made Mako laugh. The girl had been in the city for less than a week. If anything, she's only slow him down. "Nah, I got it."

Seeing that the subtitle approach wasn't going to work, Korra reached out to grab the back of Mako's jacket. "Hey tough guy, let me help," she said before giving him a confident smirk. "My best friend is an excellent tracker."

The offer was a tempting one, and when it came down to it, he really didn't know where to go next if Bolin hadn't paid the Avatar a house call. "Okay but let's hurry."

"You go hold up the ferry, I'll go get Naga," Korra told him before running off.

A minute later, Korra made her way into the back yard to find Naga and Sasuke sitting around. "Don't tell me this is all you've been doing all day," she grumbled.

Sasuke looked up at the girl, then looked away with a grimace. "No…the pregnant woman caught me after I got here and had me help her with some…_chores_," he grumbled.

"Oh what a hard day you've had," Korra told in in a sarcastic tone.

For his part, Sasuke just ignored the girl's comment. Pema was kind and gentle, a woman who managed to get things done with gentle nudges and having other people see her way of thinking with encouraging remarks. The disturbing similarities between her and Sasuke's own mother made him want to be as far away from her as possible. Then there was Jinora and her little sister Ikki. A pair of siblings playing around with each other was even worse than the mother when it came to bringing up bad memories.

Something told Sasuke he wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight with everything that had been drudged up in the last few hours. This would probably be the only day he'd ever spend on the island around the Airbending family.

"You have no idea."

Korra shrugged at the odd comment. "Look, you remember me telling you about Bolin and Mako?"

"Yes."

"Well Bolin's missing and Mako wants my help looking for him, and I need Naga to help track him down. Wanna come with?"

"Is that even possible in this city?" Sasuke asked. He knew a few things about canine tracking units from his time in Konoha, but it wasn't much, and the odd atmosphere that hung around the crowded city might be detrimental to a dog's sense of smell.

The question made Korra think for a moment, and then shrug. "No idea, but it's better than nothing. Now come on, Mako's holding up the ferry for us."

Glad for an excuse to get off the island, Sasuke followed along.

When Korra finally made it to the ferry, Mako looked over to the guy in water tribe clothes and raised an eyebrow. "You're Naga?" he asked, wondering how a guy could end up with a name like that. Unless he was actually a flat-chested girl…

"_That's _Naga," Sasuke replied with an irritated frown as he pointed to the giant canine.

"She's a polar bear dog," Korra clarified. Not many people in the South Pole had ever seen a polar bear dog up close, and she was sure that no one outside of that environment even knew what one looked like.

Mako could only stare. "So your best friend is a polar bear dog…somehow, that makes perfect sense."

-One Hour Later-

"Are you sure this thing is going the right way?" Sasuke asked as the boys walked down the street flanking the giant dog that carried the Avatar.

Korra rolled her eyes at the lack of faith. "Naga knows what she's doing," she assured him. "I haven't guided her for a single turn yet, and Bolin's…socks…" Korra couldn't help but shudder at the memory of having touched those things, "give us a good trail to follow." _Especially since he doesn't seem to wash those things…__**ever**_.

Eventually, the trail led them to the square where Zuko's statue had been erected.

Korra stopped a moment to look at the iron likeness of what the old man had been in his prime, then frowned at the flame hovering in his hands. "How do they do that anyway?"

"Probably some sort of gas fed into the palm by a system of pipes," Mako explained before he looked around the square. "Well, this is one of my brothers hangouts…so it looks like your idea worked."

The reluctant praise only made Korra looked down at the boy in agitation. "Well of course it worked," she grumbled. Then she slid off Naga's back to scratch the giant dog's ear in appreciation for her hard work.

A quick glance around the area told Mako where to look next. If they left it up to the dog, he'd probably spend the next several minutes just roaming around the square to find the right trail. However, street urchins were always a good source of information and there were a lot of them in Republic City.

Luckily, Mako spotted one he knew playing with some of his friends and went over to see if the boy knew anything. Once he had gotten the lead boy's attention, Mako motioned for him to come over near the others. "Have you guys seen my brother around here lately?"

The leader of the group, a boy Mako only knew a 'Schoocy' and made a few gestures that obviously meant yes before he held out a hand. "Perhaps, my memories a little…fuzzy."

Mako sighed and pulled out a few yuan for the kid. They were both just lucky he had been able to find substitute work at a power planet earlier that day. "When?"

"'Bout noon," the kid replied. "He was performing some kinda money-rat circus and theeeeeeen," he prompted Mako for more money.

After Mako handed him some more yuans, the kid looked around before he stepped in closer to continue. "Shady Shin showed up and flashed some serious cash. Bo took off with him in his hot rod. After what happened to the Agni Kai, the Triple Threats and the Red Monsoons are muscling up. There's rumors going around that there's some new gang trying to muscle its way into Republic City, and everyone's getting jumpy. There's probably going to be a big throw-down sometime soon."

As soon as the kid was done giving the info, he quickly ran back into the crowd. Mako turned around to see Korra staring at him with a strange expression on her face. "What was he talking about?"

"There's some big turf war going on between the triads and maybe a new group trying to move into the city, and it sounds like Bolin is about to get caught up in it," Mako explained.

Korra blinked. "Oh-kay…but…why? Bolin isn't exactly the gangster type." Then she frowned, "and how do you know these guys anyway?"

The reaction he knew his answer would cause made Mako clear his throat and look away from Korra. "We used to work for them back in the day."

"Back in the day?" she repeated dubiously, "What? Were you like the world's youngest hit man?"

"No!" Mako told her. "I just ran numbers and stuff for them."

"But you did work for them. And you honestly expect children did math for these triad people?"

Both the teenagers blinked, and turned to look at their companion, who'd been oddly silent since coming along. Well, oddly silent as far as Mako was concerned, Korra knew walls had better conversational skills than Sasuke.

Mako gave him a deadpan look. "You'd be surprised of the illiteracy rate among criminals," he told the other boy before his face was marked by a frown. "Now are you guys gonna help me or not?"

"No."

"Yes."

Sasuke took a moment to look at Korra, then rolled his eyes when she looked back at him in confusion. "Fine. Yes."

"Then follow me to the 3T Triad's headquarters," Mako told them.

As they fell in line, Korra leaned over to whisper to Sasuke. "Why don't you want to help Mako's brother?"

The irony of his response nearly made Sasuke trip him but… "You were listening when he said he was a triad member, right?" Of course the criminal part Sasuke had no real problem with, but if the Triple Threat were like the Agni Kai…which Mako being part of them at a young age suggested…

"Yeah so? That's all in the past," Korra told him.

Sasuke decided to let the conversation end there, as Korra lost control of her dog and she rounded a corner on top of the oversized canine. When the two boys caught up with her, they saw that Naga had ran some sort of oversized rodent that looked like a raccoon-tailed weasel with red hair up a pole and was trying to get at it while Korra pulled on the reigns.

"No, bad Naga! Pabu is a friend, not a snack! Down girl," the Avatar commanded while she tried to reign in her ride.

As soon as the weasel thing came down, it ran along the sidewalk and scurried up Mako's body to rest on his shoulders. "Something's wrong, Bolin doesn't go anywhere without Pabu, he even sleeps with the fire ferret."

Mako motioned Korra and Sasuke to quickly follow them across the street and down an alley until they came to a large yet non-descript building in what somehow looked like a darker section of the city than the place they had been a minute ago. He walked up to the door, confusion evident on his face as he looked around. "Something's not right, they're always guards around the front entrance. We should be-"

Korra ran up and kicked the front door in.

"-cautious," Mako finished before he slumped forward while the Avatar looked around at the destroyed room…the part she hadn't had a hand in destroying anyway.

"It looks like there was some kind of struggle," Korra theorized.

Mako walked inside of the room and looked around as he called out his brother's name. The place had been torn up but…there were no scorch marks or water stains to indicate what had happened. _Weird, even when the triads are going at it, they usually leave the headquarters alone. _While the Triple Threat were by far the youngest of the three, the other two remaining triads had long since worked out a system of unspoken rules to help keep the criminal underworld together, even when they were in the middle of hot territorial disputes. _If the Red Monsoons have actually attacked the 3T's main place of operations, this are going to get real ugly real fast_.

The sound of a rather loud engine revving up outside drew Mako and Korra's attention, with the latter leading them through the back exit, that she also busted open. Mako caught sight of his brother and some other people tied up in the back of a satovan that was surrounded by satobikes before the door closed and the vehicles started to head away a few seconds later while two of the bike riders stayed behind.

"Bolin!" Mako shouted.

From behind them, Sasuke reached for a kunai, and grit his teeth when he found his bag of ninja tools and weaponry gone. _Right, didn't have time to get it…_

Sometime soon he'd need to restock his arsenal tattoos, despite the annoyance it would bring.

Since the other two were just standing there, Sasuke took a deep breath through his nose while the bikers reached into a couple of sacks they had on their satobikes to throw a pair of cylindrical objects at them. _Deep breath through the nose as you draw in the surrounding chakra before focusing it…_

In his mind, Sasuke pictured the people of the Leaf Village happily going on about their lives as they stepped over the corpses of his parents.

…_then funnel it through your arms as you strike and shield your hands quickly after discharge_, Sasuke told himself as he followed the steps before the grenades the two men had thrown could come close enough to effect them.

The results were much less than he was expecting, even with the sun being gone for the night. Still, two balls of flame rammed into the vehicles with enough force behind them to knock them over, even if the men riding them had managed to dodge by jumping above the attacks.

Green gas spewed from the canisters, and Mako looked past the scene with trepidation. If the bikes had been hit by strong Firebending… "Oh crap, the gas tanks!" he screamed before grabbing Sasuke and Korra to haul them back inside the Triad's base.

Hearing an unfamiliar word made Sasuke turn his attention to Mako. "The what?" he managed to ask before a large explosion filled the alley right as Mako shut the door to block the flames.

After the force of the explosion knocked out the door's window, Korra peeked through what was now a hole in the door to get a look around. She didn't see anyone moving around, and was glad for the ringing in her ears that might have covered any noise made by the poor guys that had been caught up in that.

"SO NOW THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN RID OF MY ONLY HOPE OF GETTING MY BROTHER BACK, ANY MORE BIGHT IDEAS SMART GUY?" Mako yelled.

"WHAT?" Sasuke shouted back.

"I **SAID ANY MORE BRIGHT IDEAS NOW THAT YOU'VE BLOWN UP OUR ONLY LEADS**?" Mako asked him as loudly as he could.

Korra looked down at the two fire benders, and cupped her hands. "I THINK I HAVE ONE!"

-The Police Station-

"YOU'RE THE ONES WHO CAUSED THAT EXPLOSION AT THE TRIPLE THREAT'S BASE?" Lin shouted as she looked down on the assembled teenagers as she paced back and forth in her office.

Korra winced, then put her finger in her ear to clean it out and help cut down on the ringing. "It was an accident!"

She glanced over at Sasuke, not sure what to think. The young man hadn't seemed all that torn up about incinerating another human being. Mako, Korra could understand being a little callus with his brother missing and all, but Sasuke hadn't even blinked when they found the rider's charred body who hadn't managed to clear the explosion radius like his buddy that had scrambled up a fire escape.

"Did you even _think _of coming to the police first?" Lin demanded.

Mako threw his hands over to gesture at Korra. "I went to the Avatar!"

Completely ignoring the irate police captain, Sasuke looked over to Korra. "This is a waste of time."

The comment drew the full of Lin's ire, and she turned her neck towards the boy. "**Excuse me**?" she asked in a dark tone.

"We came in here to report a missing person, and the circumstances leading to his abduction to see if you know anything about the group responsible," Sasuke began. "Since then, all you've actually done is shout at us and stomp around this office."

Lin glared at Sasuke that much harder. "Are you telling me how to do my job boy?"

"No, just pointing out your incompetence," he simply explained in an even tone. "You seem more agitated over the fact that we were doing your job than the fact that a crime was committed under your watch."

The standoff continued for another moment, then Lin turned towards the door. "Sergeant!" the captain called out, then waited for the man to poke his head in. "Place these three under arrest. One count of homicide, and two counts of assistance."

Korra jumped out of her seat. "_What_?" she shouted.

Yet another word that Sasuke didn't know put a frown on his face. _I really do need to learn more than just the conversational parts of this language_, he told himself. From the looks of things, it didn't seem that Korra or Mako agreed with the charge.

"You can't be serious!" Mako shouted. He didn't know who to be more angry at, the female police captain, or the fire bender who'd goaded her into this. He went for the target that might get better results. "You can't-what about my brother?"

Lin turned her attention on him, but didn't soften up. "We will of course look for your brother, but from your description of his kidnappers, I wouldn't hold out much hope. We don't even know who took him."

While the sergeant slapped the handcuffs on the Avatar and began to read a stunned Korra her rights, Mako stepped forward. "Bullshit! The Triple Triads hangout didn't have a single sign of bending! It had to be chi-blockers working for Amon and those Equalists. If you want to find my brother then try questioning some of them!"

"And now you're a detective?" Lin asked before she motioned the sergeant to come and put the cuffs on the brat.

Sasuke took a moment to look down at his cuffs, then over to the Avatar, then to the police captain. "Korra, what should we do here?"

Korra jumped from being startled by the question, then looked over to the boy. "Uh, what?"

"If you want to escape, now is probably the best time for it," Sasuke told her. The Lin woman seemed to be a little too hard-line to work as a hostage, so…Sasuke figured they could knock her out and take both the woman and the conscious sergeant, who would order their men not to attack for fear of hurting their leader.

But that would cause more problems down the line, and at the moment the only way Sasuke was going to get what he needed was to keep in good with Tenzin. _Although, if it really came down to it, forcing him to go along wouldn't be too hard_.

Lin spun around to put all her enraged attention on the young man. "What did you just say?" she demanded.

"I think it's better to just let Tenzin handle all this…and stop talking like that!" Korra advised.

-The Next Day-

Korra rubbed her wrists to try and get rid of the feeling of the bending restraints that had been on her all night. She didn't know how bending criminals could stand having the things on them all the time to prevent any escape attempts. If anything it proved the _opposite_ of what the Equalists were saying was true. Benders had it far worse than the people who couldn't bend…if they were in prison at least.

She looked up to the bald monk that was her rescuer. "So Tenzin, where's Sasuke and Mako?"

"The boy is downstairs getting his scarf," the air bender explained while he ked Korra towards the elevator. "Your…other friend…Korra, he killed someone. You and that Mako boy being placed under arrest was just Lin being…well, _Lin_. But…" Tenzin let out a sigh. "Look, what exactly happened?"

Korra looked away from her teacher and tried to organize her thoughts. "I don't know," she mumbled.

"Best start from the beginning then," Tenzin told her.

So Korra gave Tenzin a quick rundown of what had happened last night after Mako had come looking for his brother, how they tracked him down to the square with Zuko's statue, and then heard about his involvement with the triad, as well as what happened at the Triple Threat's HQ.

When Korra was finished with her explanation, she also decided to throw in her two cents about the whole thing. "Okay, someone got killed, and I get that's big. But he was a _kidnapper_ for crying out loud! And the way Lin just…_exploded _on us… I mean, when I met her the first time she was glad I caught those guys, and now she's mad about _this_?"

Tenzin played with his beard as the elevator they were waiting for finally arrived. "It's…complicated," Tenzin replied. "Lin's very…territorial and headstrong. The first time, you just bumped into those thugs on the street and took care of things without causing a fuss. This time, you actually went out looking for trouble and cause an explosion that has a body count. There's a difference."

"So now she's mad at me for doing my job?" Korra asked with an annoyed look on her face right as the elevator dinged, and came to a stop. When she stepped off, Korra looked around at the hallway. "This isn't the first floor." If anything it looked like they were underground.

The comment about Korra's job had Tenzin looking at her oddly. "Your job?"

Korra gave him an equally odd look. "I _am_ the Avatar. Helping people is what I'm supposed to be doing."

"What your supposed to be doing is learning Airbending," Tenzin said with his voice becoming slightly raised towards the end, his memories of seeing Korra play in her pro-bending match the other night coming back into his mind. "I'll admit that it was wrong for me to not allow you your freedom, but putting yourself in danger can wait until your are fully trained."

With what she could tell would be another big fight on the horizon, mentally Korra dug in her feet and prepared herself to be more stubborn than Naga on bath day. "So I should just say 'Hey all you Equalists, kidnappers, criminals, and sprits know what else, I'm training right now so go cause all the trouble you want'?"

Seeing where this was going, Tenzin decided to try a bit more reasonable approach. He knew when Korra wanted to be stubborn, the air bender had a better chance as moving boulders with his pinky than budging her. "There are people in this city that are taking care of those kinds of problems until you are ready."

"I'm ready now! And they're not taking care of it. Bolin's still missing," Korra exclaimed as she threw her arms wide, then stopped when they came to a barred door in the middle of the hallway with a metal bender behind it. "Uh, what're we doing down here anyway?"

Tenzin waited for the bender on the other side of the bar door to open it before he answered. "I wanted to talk to your friend before we left."

A few minutes later, Korra found herself standing in front of a maximum security cell, glad that she hadn't been put down here for her one night in jail. While Korra's cell had been just a few iron bars and uncomfortable handcuffs that held her hands behind her back, Sasuke's terms of confinement seemed much harsher.

First, there was his cell. It was a tiny area only measuring 6x6x6, with the only light coming from a single bulb and the entrance being a solid iron sheet that had to be metal bent in order to be opened. Then there were his restraints, a pair of large cuffs held his hands together and were attached to an iron rod that ran down to his feet to connect with another pair of restraints that held his feet. To top it all off, there was a metal faceplate around his mouth, that had a few small holes in the front and a larger one on top with what looked like a funnel.

Just seeing him sitting him on the small bed attached to the wall made Korra flinch. She grit her teeth, then looked over to the guard. "What the hell is this?" the Avatar shouted.

"Maximum restraints for a fire bender who's been deemed dangerous," the man told her before looking over to Tenzin. "You have five minutes."

_Lin may be going a bit overboard on this one_, Tenzin admitted. "Sasuke, are you awake?"

He knew from previous visits to such people, the slumped over position that Sasuke was in right now was pretty much the only position they could take with the kind of restraints he had on. They either learned to sleep as is, or went without it until they couldn't stay conscious.

"What do you want?" the boy asked in a dead tone after opening his eyes.

"I was told you decided to wave your right to legal council," Tenzin said.

Korra looked over to the old man, then Sasuke, then back to Tenzin. _He's chained up so much he can't even move and __**that's**__ what you want to talk about_?

"There's no point to it. My hearing is after the full moon," Sasuke told them. He turned his attention on Tenzin completely. "You are still calling down the moon spirit, right?"

The oddity of the question threw Tenzin for a loop. "Well…yes I suppose-"

Korra quickly stepped over him. "We can wait till this mess is straitened-"

"_No_!" Both of the benders were taken back by the ferocity of Sasuke's instance. Korra particularly, it was more emotion than she'd seen out of him in…well…_ever_.

Sasuke slid around to lay down on the bed the best he could with his restraints. "Go on with your training. I'll be fine."

Korra didn't know what to go with: anger at her friend being so…well, _him_, or just plain confused as to _why_ he was seemingly wanting to stay in a jail cell. "Hey-"

"Don't you still have to go find that guy's brother?" Sasuke asked before Korra could get more than a word out. "Stop wasting your time here."

As much as she wanted to argue, Sasuke had a point. Bolin was still missing, and Korra still had no idea where they were supposed to look for him. She took a moment to look at Sasuke, then let out a humph. _It's not like he's going anywhere, knock some sense into him later_.

The idiot was probably just trying to show off by acting tough or something. If those things he was wearing were as uncomfortable as they looked, he'd be jumping at the chance to get out of his cell come tomorrow.

"Fine!" Korra grumbled. She shot him an annoyed look, then headed out the door.

Sasuke watched the two people leave, then waited till he couldn't hear their footsteps anymore. As soon as he was out of hearing range, Sasuke performed the escape jutsu, and the restraints hit the floor with a resounding clang.

After massaging his wrists, to get some feeling back in them, the boy laid back on the modest bed to collect his thoughts. Genjutsu would be able to trick the guard who came in with his meals he was still in his restraints, so now all he had to do was wait a few days until Tenzin called the moon spirit to learn where the ancient creature was and he would finally be done with all this.

-Later That Night-

Sitting outside the air temple as she listened to the guards radio, Korra was feeling like a total loser. A second day of looking for leads on Bolin had come up with nothing. Naga couldn't track someone in a satomobile, and no one on the street that Mako had talked to had seen those weirdoes in masks since last night.

What was even worse was that she was starting to think it might be a hopeless cause. Some of the police she had talked to said the first forty-eight hours were the only real window in which missing people could be found with any chance of success. After that, Bolin's odds dropped drastically.

Korra grit her teeth and slammed her fist onto the ground when her thoughts turned to the police. If anything, they seemed to be getting in the way of saving Bolin. When she went to Lin for help like she was _supposed_ to do, they locked her up for doing her job as the Avatar. When she went to go track down leads, following Mako's advice to see what Equalists had to say about Bolin being missing, they found some people handing out flyers. Unfortunately, ever time Korra had tried to gently earth bend them into a corner so she could have a private chat with the idiots giving people pictures of some guy named Amon, there was a policeman hanging around to stop her. Of course when Korra raised hell about it, the several policemen just went on about the Equalist's _right_ to protest!

Benders were protecting a bunch of non-bender _morons_ who were going around shouting how benders were oppressing them. Meanwhile, the guys stirring up hatred and bigotry had their buddies kidnapping benders to do who knew what to them!

The police were actually protecting the Equalists, while the people who were actually trying to _stop_ the bad guys were being thrown in jail. The insanity of it all made Korra want to shout in frustration. It was _nuts_!

A sudden stop of music coming from the radio drew Korra's attention. "-_ere that should do it. Ladies and gentlemen my compatriots and I are interrupting you for a truly historic event. Coming to you live from an un disclosed location, the first ever bending cleansing is about to-oh they're starting!" _

A second announcer's voice cut off the first's. _I GIVE YOU YOUR __**HERO**__ YOUR __**SAVIOR**__, __**A-MON**__!_" the new voice said while cheers could be heard in the background.

Korra stood up and jogged over to the radio that the guards had gathered around. "What the heck are you guys listening to?" she asked, maybe a little crabbier than she meant to.

Jinta, the only female member of the security team looked up, although her hand still was turning the frequency dial after she had turned the volume down so that Korra could barely hear anything. "Well we were listening to some new age music till this thing cut into our signal."

"It's on every channel," a Fire Nation guard who Korra thought was named Lee grumbled.

Shoving her guards out of the way, Korra turned the volume back up. "Shhh! I want to hear this."

-City Jail-

"**My quest for equality began**-"

Sasuke peeked through the small slot that guards were supposed to use to check him before coming to feed a prisoner. "Turn the radio up."

"KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE!" the guard yelled back, then reached over to turn the volume _down_ and smirked at the door that the request had come from. He knew the kid was the little idiot who had decided to get on the chief's bad side. If the little idiot was still student enough to still be making demands, he knew Lin wouldn't mind little boy being put in his place…

"AND IF I HEAR ANYMORE NOISE FROM YOU I'LL BEAT YOU SO BLACK AND BLUE THAT-"

The man cut himself off when the door that was holding the prisoner slammed open, and the boy stuck his head out. The sheer impossibility of a prisoner getting out of his restraints, much less his _room_ made the guard freeze, not sure of what to do.

Then the kid looked at him with glowing eyes and…

-Fire Ferret's Apartment-

"**That fire bender killed my father, then he turned his fire on me,**" Amon's voice said over the airwaves. "**It was only through my mother's quick action that I survived. But ever since then, I've had to hide my face**."

From his spot on the couch, Mako glared at the box as if it was the actual man speaking.

-Air Temple Island-

Korra frowned at the man's story. In the end, it wasn't some ideology or even real want for reform that drove him, Amon seemed motivated by nothing more than simple revenge.

"What's going on here?"

She looked over to see Tenzin had shown up, but the man quieted down when Korra put a finger over her lips, then pointed to the radio.

"**I'm sure you've heard that the Avatar is here in Republic City**," Amon continued. "**And if she were here, she would tell you that bending brings balance to the world. But **_**I**_** am here to tell you that she is **_**WRONG**_.

"**The only thing bending has brought to the world is pain and suffering**. **It has been the cause of **_**every **_**war in **_**every**_** era**."

Korra grit her teeth almost growling at the radio in anger at the words it was spitting out. She clenched her fists, and managed to keep herself from smashing the damn thing into a million pieces. "Pain an suffering my ass!" she yelled, as if Amon could actually hear her. "You're the one who's kidnapping people!"

"Korra please, I can't hear what he's saying," Tenzin told her.

"-**ou're wondering what the revelation is**. **Well I am here to tell you**," Amon said before pausing a moment. "**Since the beginning of recorded history, the spirits have acted as guardians of our land, ever watchful for the beasts that wait just beyond our shores**. **However, their vigilance in looking outward has made them ignore the crises that threatens us **_**now**_.

"**But, they can no longer ignore the cries of their people**. **They say that the Avatar has failed them**. **They haven chosen me to usurer in a **_**new**_** age of balance. To do this, they have granted me a great power, the power to take away a person's bending **_**permanently.**_"

The declaration made Korra completely forget her anger. Lost in her own shock, she couldn't even make out the conversations of her guards. _But that's impossible_.

"_Can he really do-Oh we're still on_," the first announcer said. "_Now let's see, Amon seems to be bringing someone out from backstage. I think…yes I recognize him, that's 'Lightning 'Bolt' Zolt, the leader of the Triple Threat Triads_."

-Fire Ferret's Apartment-

Mako felt as if he had been punched in the gut when he heard who was up on stage. He wanted to turn the radio off. He knew what was coming next. But, he kept himself on the couch, waiting…_hoping_ that what he _knew_ what was coming…well, _wasn't_.

"-_and now Zolt is showing us just why he's called and oh, oh my fellow Equalists, our savior has just DODGED LIGHTING! This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen! He's got Zolt in an arm hold…and he just struck Zolt right in the temple!. It-it's amazing my friends, Zolt's lighting just turned into fire, and…and now there's not even that! Wait…wait, Zolt's getting up and YES! OH MY YES my friends ZOLT CAN'T BEND ANYMORE! OUR SAVIOR HAS JUST EQAULIZED THE GREATEST CRIMINAL REPUBLIC CITY HAS EVER KNOWN_!" the man shouted as thunderous applause could be heard in the background.

-City Jail-

"_-and with that cowardly display of trying to run from the great Amon, the famous Fire Ferrite Bolin won't be playing any more bending games_!" the radio announcer shouted while Sasuke looked at the box while checking to make sure the guard was still under his Genjutsu and repairing the cell door.

"**As much as they all deserve it**, **I must insist that these fools not be harmed**," Amon said over his microphone. "**They are our proof and **_**my**_** message to Republic City**! **I will not rest until ALL benders have been dealt with**. **I will bring the Avatar before you all and hold her accountable for her failure**. **And once even the Avatar has been brought to task**,** I will have restored balance to the world**!"

Sasuke turned the radio off by smashing it into the tables then he leaned back in the chair that his guard usually occupied and frowned in consideration as he squelched the anger burning in his heart.

"So much for being able to just lay around for three weeks," he grumbled. If Korra ended up getting…crippled by this Amon…

-Meanwhile on the other side of the world-

Shikamaru frowned as he went over the papers in front of him the third time that night, then let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "It can't be done."

"What?" Temari shouted from her place on the side of his small desk.

_Troublesome woman_, the shadow manipulator thought, although he was more than smart enough to keep from saying it. He ignored the blonde's outburst, and looked past her. "Sorry, but my recommendation is: tell everyone that decided to come with us they need to find a new place to stay. Then we need to get the hell out of here too."

Across the table from the former Leaf ninja, Gaara, the Kazekage crossed his arms. "Explain."

"I've run the numbers. After Madara's…killer rock from the sky jutsu, we lost more than seventy-five percent of our remaining forces, which were less than half to begin with. Then the armies of Waterfall, Grass, Rain…hell, I think I even saw a guy with a _Sound_ headband in there somewhere, showed up and started gutting the survivors. The Mizukage's counterattack gave us time to retreat but there was less than a hundred of us that made it out of there.

"Even factoring in the people that got away via reverse summoning, the ones that haven't been found by enemy villages these past three months…we just _don't_ have enough people to even _consider_ trying to build up a military force, much less a new village…and that's just the first problem for a plan like that."

In truth the only reason they hadn't been crushed before now was that their camp was in the middle of the dessert…nearly half a kilometer underground. Gaara had made it himself.

This time it was Temari to ask the obvious question. "Then what's the second?"

Shikamaru pointed to himself. "I'm Leaf," he explained before moving his hand towards the other people in the room. "You guys are Sand. And hell, _she's_ Rock!"

Kurotsuchi, who was currently leaning against the wall in the back of the room frowned at the boy pointing at her. "Hey!"

"My point is, we're all from different villages that have been trying to kill each other since before any of us were born," Shikamaru explained. "Putting all five of us together in one big group may seem like a good idea, but once the threat uniting us is gone, people are going to start remembering that none of our villages really liked each other all that much, even with the alliances. Then its going to be who killed whose grandfather, and things will only get worse from there. We've already got some fights breaking out between some of the older Mist and Lightning ninja."

Gaara nodded in agreement. Although he was the commanding military officer on paper, several of the other villagers were either slow or completely refusing to follow his order since the Kages that had decided to join the alliance were now dead.

On top of which they had several problems with…he didn't know what exactly to call them. Could people still be called defectors when their villages were no more? But there were numerous reports of Rock/Leaf/Mist/Cloud…even a few Sand ninja that had put on other headbands to join with what people were already calling the _new_ great villages. Others simply turned to a life of banditry thanks to the fact there wasn't a military force big enough to patrol vast stretches of the former five great nations.

"And Naruto?" Gaara asked.

In response, Shikamaru held up his hands in a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. But him and the Eight-Tails still have that large bounty out on their heads from all the new shinobi nations…and since we're all not drooling morons that just get along, we can assume Masked Madara's plans hit a snag. Their either dead, or whatshisface is, and all I can say is I really hope it's the guy in the mask."

When Gaara said nothing, Shikamaru urged him on. "So boss, what's the plan?"

"You actually sound like I still have some authority over the unified army," he said in his usual mumblely tone. Technically he did, and there were people who listened to him, but the vast majority of the ninja had gone their separate ways.

Shikamaru let out a sigh. "Well getting everyone from the Leaf to follow me would be too much of a pain," he said. "Besides, you read the intelligence reports. Sasuke Uchiha showed up at my old village a little over two months ago. Since he's still apparently trying to off anyone who ever wore the kind of headband I used to, I'm sticking with the only guy I know that's managed to beat him in a strait up fight."

"Uchiha?" Kurotsuchi asked, remembering the boy from his appearance at the summit. "But…he's with the Akatsuki! If he's still around then…then… Wait, two months…the Leaf Village was rubble by then. What was he doing there?"

Shikamaru shrugged again. "Kurenai and I were more interested in staying alive than asking questions. I just saw him go into some old temple, then we got the hell out of there before he came out."

"You let our _only lead_ on…hell, _everything_ just walk away?" Kurotsuchi shouted.

Shikamaru gave a calm reply. "Getting mixed up with a psychopath that managed to take on the five kages and walk away with all his limbs attached when all I've got is a fat guy and a woman who just gave birth is not a gamble worth making. Since no one's even seen him since, I'm willing to let sleeping cereal killers lie."

The room remained silent as Gaara considered his options. "Everyone should head to their respective people and tell them…I've decided to disband."

"Gaara?" Temari mumbled in surprise.

"Shikamaru is right. As things are…we're too big a target to hide, but we don't have enough strength to defend ourselves," he replied. "My final order as general of the alliance is this: we are disbanding. Our villages are gone, if you need to join a new one to survive…then so be it. That is my final order as Kazekage."

"So just what _are_ you gonna do?" Shikamaru asked.

"After everyone goes their separate ways…I'm going to try and track down Naruto," Gaara told him. "Since none of us are under a Genjutsu, then something must have happened. Since Sasuke Uchiha is our best lead at the moment, it would be best to start with him. Which means trying to retrace his steps to see if we can pick up a trail. I'll take a single team with me. Everyone else will have to find their own way."

_I was afraid of that_, Shikamaru told himself.

-Ninja Channel!-

"Welcome to NIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNJAAAAAAA CHAAAAAANEEEEEEEL!" Ino cheered. "Okay so we finally got chapter 3...or really chapter 2 out of the way since the stupid author who KILLED ME, ahem… since the author really put out 2 chapters at once when he wrote this thing."

Kakashi nodded. "And now for your quick summary," he said before taking a deep breath. "Amon finally showed up, Boilin's been de-bended…benderized…or whatever, Sasuke's in jail, and Korra's…being Korra. Oh yeah and Gaara's still around…like you didn't see _that_ coming."

"Of course in our upcoming two chapters that will conclude book one, we'll have the real identity of Amon, for this fan fiction anyway, the big explanation of how everything all ties together, and Korra's big death scene when Sasuke guts her for another eye upgrade…maybe," Ino grumbled before mumbling something about the damn crossover tramp. "But now for an IMPORTANT look into the future of this fan fiction, we've got a new segment called crossover character matchup! In this segment, Kakashi will select not two, but THREE characters that would create an interesting romantic plot, with a love triangle sort of thing, and I, your lovely host, will predict the outcome of this romantic rivalry."

She looked over to her partner. "So who do we have today? Naruto/Mako and Asami? Sakura and Bolin/Mako? Sasuke/Naruto and…ugh, _Korra_?"

"No," Kakashi said as he crossed his arms and lowered his head and reached own behind the desk. "After thinking it over, I have decided on a possible triangle that interests me personally, and thus the fans will want to know."

"Ooooo," Ino asked. "You mean…uh, wait… Gaara…Korra/Asami?" _They really need more female characters in this Avatar show_.

Without further a due, Kakashi reached down to pull out the matching cards that showed…a trio of dogs? "Naga and Akamaru/Pakkun!"

Ino gave him a blank look. "huh?"

"Well _everyone's_ trying to think about the dull and dry human relationships," Kakashi told her. "I'm trying to spice things up by throwing a canine one into consideration. So, who do you think? I'm partial to Pakkun myself."

"YOU WANT ME TO PREDICT THE LOVELIFE OF DOGS?" Ino screeched.

Kakashi gave her a one-eyes blink. "Uh…yes?"

"For the love of…DOGS? **DOGS**?" the girl shouted as she quickly grew more out of control. "When I took this #&!%ing job, it was because I'd get time in every chapter! But if you're going to have my expert relationship skills wasted on some overgrown mutant bitch and a pair of horney canines! You can just #&!% your #&!%ing #&!% up the #&!%ing #&!%!"

Kakashi sighed and looked out towards the camera. "Well that's it for today folks. See you next time. Bye!"

"I'll #&!%ing KILL YOU!" Ino yelled as the stage hand ninja tried to hold her down.


	4. Sasuke Ch4

Chapter 4: Revelations

Mako grit his teeth, angry at the sigh in front of him. It wasn't Korra bending water over his brother's slumped body, that made him kind of depressed since Korra had been at it for over an hour with no results. It wasn't the air bender looking down at his brother with worry in his eyes, Mako could at leas partially understand that guy's stance on everything…even if he disagreed with it. Heck, even his wife was here to give her sympathies.

However, that lousy chief of police waiting to get a statement from Bolin with that damn mask of regret on her face was driving him nuts! _Now the big important chief of police wants to make us think she cares_? Mako thought while huffing out a burst of steam from his nose. _Where was your worry when my brother was being crippled while everyone in the whole city listened in, huh_?

Before Mako's mouth could undergo permeate damage from his teeth grinding against one another, Korra pulled the water off of Bolin and put it back in a nearby jar. Everyone in the room waited while Bolin held out his arm towards a small rock in front him and lifted his arm and…

…got their hopes dashed when the earth didn't bend to his will.

Bolin tried again, and again, and again…seemingly straining his muscles with the last movement until he finally had to stop before he strained something. "Well…I think I may have moved it…a little."

But no one else agreed with him, Bolin slumped over. "So, that's it then," he mumbled in a voice barely loud enough to hear.

"Wait a second!" Mako almost yelled when Lin tried to come forward, probably wanting to ask Bolin some stupid questions that Mako knew would be nothing but a waste of time. He looked over to Korra, not caring if he looked like he was begging. "You're the Avatar…can't you, I don't know…use some special Avatar power to fix him?"

He didn't need to wait for Korra to tell him, Mako could tell by the look in her eyes that it was hopeless. "I tried every trick I know," she said before looking away. "I even ran over his whole body with healing water just to see if there was something I missed that _would_ be fixed. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong."

For her part, Korra didn't even want to look at Bolin right now. What Amon could do…the thought of loosing her bending was terrifying. With the proof that he wasn't bluffing standing right in front of her like this…it took everything she had to keep from leaving the room.

Bolin blinked, then looked down and rubbed his belly. "Is that why my stomach feels better? I haven't eaten since they nabbed me and was really hungry, but…" He stopped and looked around the room. "Uh…never mind."

"I'll go make you something dear," Pema told him before she headed out the room's exit.

As soon as the woman was gone, Lin stepped forward. "And while she's doing that, I can get down to some real business. I need you to tell me what happened when Amon's men grabbed you. Every detail you can think of. If you can tell us something useful and we act quickly, we just might be able to-"

"Now you're interested?" Mako demanded. "Where the hell were you last night when my brother was on a stage getting his bending taken away?"

Lin frowned at the boy's attitude, as understandable as it was, but she remained calm. "For your information, I had several undercover agents in the crowd watching Amon during the incident."

If the information was supposed to calm Mako down, it ended up having the opposite effect. "And they didn't _do_ anything? " he yelled. "No wait, I suppose they were there to _protect_ the Equalists right to whatever the hell they wanted! You guys seem pretty good at that!"

"You may say what you will, the actions of my department are not under review by a child," Lin told him, her tone becoming a little defensive. The truth of it was, the boy was half right. She had learned of the Equalits so-called secret rally the same day as everyone else, and one of her detectives had found pieces of a map that fit together to explain where the rally was being held. The observes had been there to make sure none of the cities bending gangs didn't decide to get rid of what had been a peaceful protest movement, misguided as it was. Of course its peaceful status was a thing of the past now.

Tenzin chose that moment to step between them before things could get any more out of hand. He put his hands up to have them back up a bit more. "Okay that's enough," he said to them before glancing out a window at the light coming through, and let out a sigh. "Look, we've been up all night and we're all more than a bit on edge. Lin, can you at least wait till later today to collect the boy's statement? I know you're men must have rounded up the rest of Amon's victims and they'll be needed to be interrogated first."

The woman's mouth twisted to show the didn't like the idea, but she nodded. "Fine."

"Whatever, I got to get to the power plant," Mako grumbled. With what happened to Bolin, they'd be needing the cash since their days as pro-benders were now officially over. _Which also means we'll have to find a new apartment_, Mako realized. Bochaka wouldn't let someone stay at the arena if they didn't play on one of his teams…it helped the man cut down on the cost of paying his employees.

Korra let out a yawn. "I think I should be heading to bed," she mumbled. She looked at Bolin again, trying to think of anything that might at least help with his mood. "Look, just because I couldn't heal him doesn't mean its hopeless. We can send a message to Katara down at the South Pole and see if she can do anything."

Mako turned away from the exit and focused his attention on Korra. "Do you really think she'll be able to do anything when the Avatar couldn't?"

"Hey, just because I'm the Avatar doesn't mean I'm automatically the best bender of every element," Korra told him. "Although I can heal, I'm hardly anything approaching an expert. But Katara is the best healer in the world! If there's anyone who can fix this, its her."

_Then there still might be a chance_, the injured boy told himself. With his hopes restored, even if just a little, there was something else he needed taking care of. "So…where's the kitchen?" Bolin asked before the only person he knew that also knew the layout of the temple went to get her beauty sleep.

Korra looked back to Bolin, then motioned for him to follow her.

"Councilman! Councilman Tenzin!"

Bolin and Korra barely had time to step aside before the man dressed in some official-looking clothes barreled past them. "Councilman Tenzin, Councilman Tarrlok has called an emergency meeting of the Republic City Council."

Thanks to the fact he had been up all night with the Avatar, Tenzin was unable to hide his displeasure at the news and it slipped onto his face. _He's doing it already huh_? The monk would have thought his political opponent would have at least waited until after breakfast to cause the latest uproar in the chambers.

A second later, the messenger turned and bowed to Korra. "Avatar Korra, Councilman Tarrlok has requested your presence in the emergency council meeting."

"What?" Tenzin shouted before Korra could do more than open her mouth. "What in the world does that man want with Korra?"

As Korra looked over to give Tenzin a look that went from annoyed to confused, the messenger explained himself. "I'm not sure ma'am. I'm just the messenger. Still, you have been called to appear before the council. And this Amon thing really does seem up your alley, if you don't mind me saying so ma'am," the man told her.

"That's-"

"Let me get changed," Korra said before Tenzin could object. When he looked over to her, she spoke before he could this time. "Look, I _am_ the Avatar, and this Tarrlok guy's right. If there's big time trouble in this city, I need to be the one to help deal with it."

Since it didn't seem as if Korra was going to stay home, Tenzin tried to make the best of the situation. "Very well, tell Tarrlok that we'll be there in an hour."

When the messenger had left, Korra turned her attention back on Tenzin. "An hour? Your bison can fly there in five minutes, and I only need about ten to get changed."

"But food always requires at least half an hour!" Bolin chimed in before he put his hand on Korra's back to guide her through the door. "And you aren't going to leave me here to eat breakfast all by my lonesome, are you Korra?"

The Avatar found herself quickly defeated by Bolin's puppy dog eyes, and motioned for him to follow her. Right as he left, Bolin looked back at the small stone that he had failed to move, and closed his eyes to keep the tears form coming as the weight of things started to settle down on him.

_Still a chance,_ he reminded himself.

-Council Chambers-

Korra stood behind Tenzin as she watched the representative from the Northern Water Tribe, a man in rather elaborate light blue silks that made the furs she and her own tribe's representative were wearing seem a bit…underdressed. It didn't help that the guy had the charisma to match his clothes. It left Korra feeling a little intimidated just to be standing near him.

He packed back and forth across the room as he gave his speech. "Amon represents the greatest threat that Republic City has ever seen," the man told everyone. "We need to create a task force whose sole purpose is hunting down this man, and bringing him to justice."

"Absolutely not!" Tenzin said to Tarrlok before he looked over to the council. "A move like that will further divide benders and non-benders!" He didn't need to remind them of the small mob of people already outside the building demanding action against Amon that they had all seen on their way in. If things escalated, it wouldn't be just some extremist and a few of his goons attacking people in the middle of the night, there would be violence in the streets in broad daylight.

Tarrlok crossed his arms and frowned. "It's a drastic move," he consented before looking back towards the council. "But we tried it your way Tenzin. We just sat around while these people said and did whatever they wanted, and now almost half a dozen benders have had their bending taken away, and Amon has hundreds of followers! If it was just the triads we _might_ have been able to talk to him, reason with him. But one of those people that Amon attacked was a loved and respected athlete, and those people still cheered when Amon did what he did!

"Make no mistake, this is a madman who wants _all_ benders to be taken down. We need to respond to this threat now, before things get out of control."

The old woman who was representative of the Fire Nation leaned in. "While I am inclined to agree with you Tarlok, who would head up this task force?" she asked.

"For all intents and purposes, my friend Captian Saikahn of the police will be in charge of the tactical side of things," Tarrlok explained. "However, when it comes to the public eye, the Avatar and myself will be the head of the operation."

"WHAT?" Tenzin shouted.

"What?" Korra mumbled, a bit put off by the plan.

Tenzin slammed his fist down on the council's meeting table. "Absolutely not! This is just another one of your ploys to gain more power! And involving Korra in this… Are you _trying_ to get her killed?"

After taking a moment to look at the Avatar, Tarrlok turned his attention back to Tenzin, then swept his gaze around the room to address everyone. "This madman Amon claims to have the spirits on his side; and the fact that he can take away a person's being is proof of that for a great many people. As long as he can claim that he is acting on their behalf, there is _no_ way that we can hope to counter his arguments, as _you_ seem to think we need to," Tarlok said, the last part addressing Tenzin directly before he went back to talking to the council.

"This is the only action we can take! Since our young Avatar isn't the type for public speaking, as we've all seen when she arrived…" Tarrlok paused for a moment to glance at the young girl out of the corner of his eye and watch her wince, "…and actions speak louder than words, she _must_ join this group if we are to have any hope of cutting Amon's support among the non-bender population of this city."

"She is too young, and untrained in-"

Tarrlok looked down to Tenzin and spoke right on top of him. "Your own father fought in the great war when he was twelve, with only one element at his disposal. Our Avatar is sixteen, and has already mastered three elements when she should just now be starting to learn her second. But why am I even having to suggest this?"

He looked up to the girl and saw the hesitation in her eyes. "My sources tell me you noticed the danger of these fanatics and already attempted to deal with the threat of Equalists the way they needed to be taken care of before _we_ ever even thought about it," he said to Korra directly. "Consider this our apology and pledge to assist you in your endeavors as much as we can. If, you will let us of course."

Tenzin flinched, but kept himself from looking to Korra. He had known Tarrlok would try to manipulate things, but _this_…

If the Avatar agreed with Tarrlok, then Tenzin knew that his days of being able to put a stop to the other man's actions on the council were over. The rest of the council didn't know Korra like Tenzin, or like Tarrlok did apparently. She was the Avatar, but she was also just a sixteen-year-old girl who had been raised inside a closed an controlled environment. She could be manipulated just as easily, if not more so, than any other young girl.

And Tarrlok was nothing, if not a master manipulator.

For a moment, Korra looked down at Tenzin, expecting him to tell her what to do. In all honesty, she did agree with Tarrlok's ideas, but…

_What's with this hesitation_? Korra asked herself. _Am I…afraid of Amon_?

She tried to clear her mind and think. The thought of loosing her bending _was_ terrifying. Without bending, she wouldn't be…forget the Avatar, she wouldn't even be _herself_ anymore. Bending was who Korra was. It would have been easier to chop off a limb than not bend.

But, when she thought of Bolin sitting there, and considered everyone else that was counting on her…

"Is there something wrong?" Tarrlok asked when the Avatar didn't respond to his invitation. He could see the conflicting emotions on her face, and decided to bait her into joining with him. "Of course, we will release that friend of yours, Sasuke Uchiha was it, from prison. Putting him in jail for fighting Equalists alongside the Avatar a day before we begin our own campaign against them…well I _did_ say actions speak louder than words, and we wouldn't want anyone calling us hypocrites, now would we?"

-City Jail-

The thing Sasuke probably hated most about the prison he was in would have to be the restraints; even Orochimaru didn't use things as indignant as what Sasuke was shackled in on his prisoners. If he wasn't able to get out of the thing when he needed to, there probably would have been some real concerns, but the blow to Sasuke's self-image that the shackles gave was enough to put him into a perpetual bad mood.

The only reason he had them on at the moment was because the guard had just gotten word another visitor was coming to see him over the intercom, so it was better to use his real cuffs than just transform into himself wearing some like he did when it came time to feed the prisoners.

Footsteps came down the hallway. By the time they reached the door Sasuke could tell one pair of feet belonged to Korra with her fur boots, but her odd taste in clothes meant she was the only one who he could identify. When the door opened, Korra was grinning at him alongside a somber Tenzin, and a man in a light blue jacket that Sasuke couldn't identify who smelled like a perfume store.

"Good news!" Korra exclaimed when the metal bender behind her opened the door. "You're a free man. I met with the council and we had some words." She looked over to Tenzin with a small frown.

Tenzin cleared his throat and looked away to stroke his short pointed beard. "Korra explained to me that you have some problems controlling the…scope of your bending." He looked over to Korra and Tarrlok for a moment, then back to the boy. "While I don't think that _this," _he gestured to the open door to indicate Sasuke's release_,_ "is entirely called for, if you are willing to learn control…I can approve of your release into my custody."

After picking the words apart and taking their tone into account, Sasuke could see there was more to it than just some simple release. The way the man talked screamed that something else was going on. He looked over to Korra, and frowned before talking to her evenly. "What'd you do?"

Korra looked away from the prisoner. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Shut the door, and go home. I'll stay in prison," Sasuke told them before lifting his legs to turn so his while body was on the bed then scooted back until he was up against the wall.

Tenzin frowned as he studied the boy. Although Tenzin hadn't seen it, Korra had assured them rather unconvincingly that Sasuke was remorseful over this actions. With the boy's actions put into the mix, he was starting to see Korra's point of view. The boy had the outward emotions of a stone, but…as much as he hated pulling something out of Tarrlok's philosophy, his actions did tell Tenzin the boy was at least willing to pay the price for what happened.

"WHAT?" Korra roared. She turned around and stuck her finger in the young man's face. "Hey listen pal, you have no idea what I had to agree to in order to get you released!"

With his plans about to be derailed by a stubborn fool. Tarrlok motioned for the guard to bend apart the boy's restraints. "Never the less, you _are_ now free and can no longer stay here," Tarrlok told him right as the metal fell to the ground before he turned to nod at Korra. "Avatar, my task force will be assembling at eleven tonight in the police station's basement, room six. Please be on time."

Sasuke rubbed his wrists and glared at the disappearing stranger, then Korra for the latest wrench she had thrown into his own plans. "What did you do?"

-Air Temple Island-

The flight to the island had been a quiet and tense affair. Korra sat and scowled at the back of the brooding boy, while Tenzin did his best to ignore both of them. When they did land, Korra headed off to bed, with Tenzin going to his own room for what little sleep he could get before lunch and the duties of head monk called him back into the waking world.

Meanwhile, Sasuke went to get some food that wasn't the gruel they fed to the benders too dangerous to be trusted to move. He wanted to get off the island as soon as possible, but he needed to speak to Korra and didn't want to miss his chance. Korra's insane decision to join a group going after someone like Amon troubled him in more ways than one.

But the boy he saw coming from the opposite on the way there gave him pause. "You're Bolin?" he asked the younger boy in the brown clothes with the green cloth around his waist. It certainly looked like the picture Mako had shown him, just in color.

The boy looked up at Sasuke with heavy eyes. "Yeah, that's me," he mumbled in a depressed tone.

"Tell me everything that happened to you last night," Sasuke demanded, his tone turning less than civil.

For a moment, Bolin found himself stepping back, the weird feeling the guy in front of him gave of was just…creepy. But, it wasn't like he had anything to hide, and he needed to talk to _somebody_ about the whole thing. Especially before he went to go meet with that Lin woman. Something told Bolin she wouldn't be very understanding if he messed the story up. "Okay well, they hauled me on stage and undid my ropes like the other guys…"

-Equalist Rally, Last Night-

Bolin gulped as the man in the tan and white mask with the large red circle on its forehead and black coloring around the eyes approached him. Bolin knew he was screwed, totally beyond any hope of salvation screwed. So, he tried the best approach he could think of to handle the situation.

"Hello Mr Amon, sir," he rambled while backing away from the man. "Look, uh…I know you got a thing against _bad_ benders, but I'm not like them!" Bolin pointed towards the four other men. "They're criminals and gangsters, and I'm a…"

Fighter? _No, too violent sounding_…

Sportsman? _Still that violence part to it_…

"I…I'm just an entertainer!" Bolin shouted. "What did I ever do to you?"

Amon moved on him. The man was fast, impossibly fast. Like with the others he struck Bolin thrusting knife jab that turned to an iron claw right in his stomach. There was a burning sensation on his head, and the boy's world turned white as Amon's words reverberated in his ears to the cheers of the crowd. "You were _born_!"

-Air Temple Island, Present-

"About two seconds later, I could see again and I felt," Bolin rubbed his arms as if to fight the chill the memory gave him, and sighed. "I dunno…empty. I guess that's the best way to put it."

He looked back to Sasuke. "What's got you so interested about it anyway?"

Since he didn't really see the harm in it, Sasuke went and told him. "Korra's been roped into going after Amon by a man who sits on the city council in exchange for…"

Bolin blinked when Sasuke stopped talking mid sentence. "Something wrong?"

"Just déjà vu," Sasuke replied. "Never mind. I need to go find some food. Thanks for the information."

As the other boy raised his hand in farewell when he was halfway down the hallway, Bolin could only continue standing there in confusion. "Strange guy."

-Air Temple Island-

Korra had to admit, sleeping through most of the day had its perks. Even after a half day of intense training, she still had plenty of energy to go out Equalist hunting before sundown.

The reasons for her not pro-bending anymore aside, Korra knew that it was probably for the best. There was no way she would have been able to juggle Airbending training, Avatar duties, _and_ playing professional sports…and she had a feeling that it would have been the Avatar stuff that would have suffered for it.

She double-checked the armor that Tarlok had sent over to make sure all her straps were in place. It was a little different from the armor the police wore, the shoulder guards were far bulkier and it didn't have any of the built in weapons that metal benders could use, but the badge of office was still there.

When she got out to her boat, she wasn't surprised to find Tenzin waiting for her, but Sasuke's presence was an oddity.

"Korra, I asking you to reconsider this," the Airbending master begged.

Korra shot him a look. "You know I can't do that. If I back out of my deal with Tarrlok, who knows what'll happen."

"I'll probably get sent back to jail," Sasuke told her. "I can live with that." There was also the damage to Korra's reputation, but he didn't really care about that at the moment.

"Well I can't!" she told him before clenching her fists and breaking eye contact. "Look, it was my idea to go looking for Bolin, and my idea to let you come along. What happened with you is an accident in the heat of the moment, but what I did was make the choices that brought us that far."

Tenzin cleared his throat to get her attention. "As happy as I am to see you're thinking things through and taking responsibility for your actions, your training-"

"I was born the Avatar Tenzin," Korra said, cutting him off. "It's not a job you train for, it's a destiny. Taking care of guys like Amon is part of it. End of story."

She shoved her way past the two men and got on her boat before propelling it towards the shore with her Waterbending as fast as she could. _I can't believe those guys_. Was it so wrong to ask for a little faith? Korra knew there was a risk in fighting Amon and his goons, but she had been training for stuff like this her whole life.

Back at the docks, Sasuke watched the Avatar speed off towards the mainland with a frown. "Tell me something, how many fights has Korra actually been in?"

"Well, she has been practicing bending her whole life, so-"

"So just the one against a street punk, got it" Sasuke said. He knew from personal experience that training and real life were too very different things. During his fist mission when the chunin had attacked, his training had kicked in before Sasuke had time to think. But, when Zabuza showed up and given him time to consider just how outclassed he had been, it was a whole different story.

Tenzin patted the young man on the shoulder to give him some reassurance. "Don't worry I doubt they'll be going against Amon on their very first night," Tenzin told him. "Tarrlok's a politician, and a rather seedy one at that. This Amon person gives him an excuse to do whatever he wants. I doubt the man will want to get rid of something like that until he's milked it for all it's worth."

The monk cleared his thoughts of he matter for tonight, and turned to face the boy. "Now, about your Firebending. Korra told me you might have some…control issues?" he asked.

"I thought you people were limited to a single element," Sasuke replied, not looking away from the shrinking form of Korra's canoe.

To show the boy he was listening, Tenzin nodded in response. "While I don't know much in the way of forms or mechanics when it comes to Firebending, the philosophy is another story. All too often, that is the source of problems when it comes to bending.

"Case in point: Korra. There's no physical or biological reason as to why her Airbending isn't working. The girl can't learn Airbending because she doesn't _think_ like an air bender," he explained. "Now, shall we give it a try?"

-Republic City Streets-

Much later after she left Air Temple Island, Korra ran her fingers through her hair. The powdery…gunk the gas from that canister left behind clung to her hair and clothes no matter how hard she tried to rub it out. And the _smell_! "I am _not_ paying for the cleaning bill," she told Tarrlok, who just chuckled at the girl's bad mood.

"Don't worry, I'll cover the cost. Eight out of ten isn't bad, you did good work tonight Avatar."

She looked over to the truckload of prisoners they had manage to collect to try and console herself. Everything had been going so perfect up until the end of the operation. Tarrlok's taskforce was comprised of water benders, so they had brought a tank of water with them to the bookstore that was their target. Well, it hadn't _really_ been a bookstore. That was just a front for the Chi Blocker training camp that existed below it.

After confirming its existence, the taskforce had sent a wave of water through the basement windows and frozen more than half the trainees and teachers. Then Korra knocked out the wall, and led the charge inside, using her Earthbending to take out several more students. She would have gotten them all, except one of the criminals threw a canister in her face that exploded in a cloud of green gas that left the whole task force coughing.

By the time the police had recovered, the trainees had escaped through a secret tunnel that led into the sewers. Even Naga wouldn't have been able to track them through that stench.

After that, it was time for the photo op, a few words from Tarrlok, and everybody was heading home. Officially it was a win, but Korra still felt she could have done a lit better.

"That stupid gas of theirs isn't going to work a second time, I'll be ready," Korra told herself.

"That's the spirit!" Tarrlok assured her before their car came to a stop at the docks. "Now, we've got a press conference tomorrow morning, so don't be late. Don't worry though, I'll take care of the talking."

Korra got out of the satomobile with an even expression. Fighting terrorists till three AM, and an early morning press conference that she didn't even really need to be there for…it occurred to her they probably should have included something along the lines of public relations practice during her Avatar training.

"Thanks," the girl replied on instinct before heading to her boat. Right as she got on the bender-propelled craft, Korra put her body into autopilot and went through the motions of getting home, taking a much needed shower, and going to bed without a word to anyone that was still awake.

The morning found Korra just about as tired as she had been when she crawled into bed. Naga dragged her out for a walk. By the end of it and five cups of morning tea Korra's blood was pumping enough to keep her awake for a few hours. After the ride over to the mainland and some strange drink that Tarrlok's secretary gave her called a cappuccino, Korra stood next to the man in question as he answered all the questions.

Then night came, followed by another raid on an Equalist training camp that went better than the first with both the trainees and chi blockers arrested. When they left the bakery, the media was already waiting for them with microphones and cameras in hand.

The next morning found Korra in a better mood about the task force. She even got an audience of bender kids wanting to hear what happened.

"And this hideout actually had Chi Blockers," Korra said, bringing the tale of her second night on the taskforce to its climax. She took a moment to eat some of her breakfast and let the tension build for the air bender girls.

Unfortunately, before she could capitalize on the moment, Sasuke cut in. "Chi blockers?"

Tenzin was the one to give the explanation. "It's a fighting style developed during the war by non-benders meant to take on benders. People who use this fighting style strike certain points on the body. It allows them to paralyze the arms, legs, or cause intense pain if certain pressure points are struck."

"Hmm, well that's weird," Korra mumbled. When she notified everyone at the table looking at her. "I could still move after they hit me."

Ikki leaned forward onto the table. "Oh who cares about that, what happened next?"

"She got beat up and had to be saved by another one of the policemen," Sasuke explained rather bluntly, much to Korra's indignation.

"Wha…you…who told you that!" she demanded, a little angry the part of the story she had wanted to glossed over was just told. Then Korra learned down to get in Sasuke's face. "Are you following me?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, then pushed his empty plate aside. "No, and you just told me. Well, you and Tenzin."

To which Korra could only reply, "Huh?"

"A fighting style developed for fighting benders, and you saying that it didn't feel that way when you were struck," Sasuke explained. "That added to what I know about you, and…well, it's pretty obvious that you lost…badly."

Korra's irritation skyrocketed with the last comment. "And just what all do you know about me, huh smart guy?"

For the first time since the conversation started, Sasuke seemed to take a reading on the mood of the girl, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh boy…look, it'll be better if I just show you," he told her before looking over to Tenzin. "Can I borrow her from the morning meditation?"

Tenzin looked over to Korra, then back to the boy, and sighed in defeat. "I don't suppose why not. It's not like her mind is ever on meditating anyway."

Despite the fact that she was grateful for getting out of a meditation session that was just going to give her a stiff back and sore butt, Korra was still in a foul mood when Sasuke led her to the training area Korra used to go through her Airbending footwork.

She looked around to see that a few of the acolytes were watching her from the temple, but other than that, they were alone. "So, what'd you bring me out here for?"

"Your healing, can you use it on yourself?" Sasuke asked.

Korra raised an eyebrow at the odd question right out of the blue. "Yeah, it's a little harder. Why?"

"Because you'll probably have some bruising before I'm done, and I suppose there is some chance of your bones calcifying a little…but I doubt you'll be able to make me do that," Sasuke assured her.

The bones comment was lost on Korra, but the rest, it sounded like… "You wanna spar with me?" she asked.

Sasuke frowned, and Korra felt as if someone had kicked her in the gut. _Wha…what the hell_? The _air _felt heavier, harder to breathe; there was even a small part of her brain that was telling her it might have been a good idea to run away.

"No, I'm going to fight you. And, I can't believe I'm saying this but," he paused before becoming serious again. "Come at me with the intent to kill, or you'll never stand a chance."

Then he moved.

Korra knew Sasuke was fast. She had figured that much when they first arrived in Republic City and taken on that gang. But actually _seeing_ it was another matter altogether.

With no water around, and since Sasuke didn't have any protective gear on, Korra planted her feet to bring up a rock…then fell back when he delivered a jab that poked her between the eyes. Of course, with someone going so close to a vital point, Korra had backed away on instinct, and ended up on her butt thanks to the extra force.

"Get up, we'll do it again," Sasuke told her.

And so they did, with the same result. The third time had Korra on the ground rubbing her ass.

The fourth time, Korra managed to deflect the blow to her face, only to end up on the ground when he pushed her chest. The fifth time had her on the ground again thanks to the near eye poke, and the sixth had her beaten with the palm shove again after she beat the eye poke.

"Do you get it now?" Sasuke asked while Korra glared at him, willing the boy to burst into flames to no effect.

"Fine, you can kick my ass without bending," she grumbled.

Sasuke shook his head and sighed. "I'll take that as a no. Now get up, and start using all your elements or this is going to take all day."

Thirty defeats and one victory later, Korra was livid as she threw fire, water, and earth at the slippery bastard to no avail. He avoided the sinkholes she created, the _one_ thing that had managed to give her a single victory, with ease and steadily approached her between the flames, rocks, and shards of ice.

When Sasuke landed close to her, Korra flinched away and tried to light his hair on fire with a gout of flame that he merely avoided by stepping forward and cocking his head to go around her fist before it was fully extended. Thus getting past her fist before there was any fire shooting out. "Do you get it now?" he asked.

"That you're annoyingly fast?" she asked. The guy made the air bender babies seem slow! "Yes!" Korra told him as she plated her feet and…let out a yelp when they were both knocked out from under her.

He let out a sigh. "You're not exactly the self-discovery type, are you?"

As Korra found herself brought up back to a vertical position, she noticed that Sasuke was well within her personal boundary zone. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Again," he said before letting go and backing up only two steps this time.

When Korra attacked again, Sasuke simply sidestepped her as she punched, kicked, and even spat fire at him more than once. "Look, from what I've seen from you and Tenzin, all bending fighting styles are mid-range to long-range combat. I was trying to show you once someone gets within five feet of you, like someone who uses close quarters combat, you pretty much don't know what to do. There's a moment of hesitation, and that's all it takes."

With the explanation in place, Korra stopped fighting for a moment and looked back on what had just happened in a new light. _Now that I think about it…every time Sasuke attacked, he used a set series of moves_, she realized. It was usually three or four that she would get used to and block, then manage to knock him away.

"Your guard's down," Sasuke told her before he thrust his fist out and made Korra back up, only to have her legs swept out from under her again. When he caught her, Sasuke couched low and stopped Korra less than a second before impact. She was inches from the ground.

"So, you when through this _whole_ thing just to tell me that?" Korra asked, still a little annoyed. She could have done with just an explanation instead of an explanation and a sore butt, a headache, and a bruised ego on top of it all.

Sasuke's expression went from his usual blank one to something that seemed a bit hard to Korra. "How many times were you struck last night? What happens when instead of a guy who's just trying to disable you, you get someone with a knife or sword intent on killing you? What happens when Amon shows up and decides he wants to seal your bending?"

As Korra found herself pulled back upright, the last bit of anger over this whole exercise faded. ""Okay…I see your point," she conceded. Amon had taken out five skilled benders of every element with ease. If she went up against him as she was now…

_You're worried about me_. "So uh…can you…help me with that?" Korra asked, a little unsure of how big a problem she was making for herself.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "What kind of help?"

Korra stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. "Wait…what? I thought the whole point of this was for you to show me the merits of some non-bending fighting style! Then teach it to me!"

"You want to learn a completely new fighting style on top of what Tenzin is already having you do?" Sasuke asked in his back to normal monotone voice.

"Like I just said, that's what I though the whole point of this was!" she yelled.

Sasuke frowned and crossed his arm. "The whole point of this was to make you more aware of your weaknesses so you could figure out how to cover them up. I can't just _give_ you an answer to a problem that has no real solution."

The explanation seemed a little like Bolin's instruction when it came to her Earthbending, only more…harsh.

"I just did this so I wouldn't have to worry about you walking around with obvious holes in your attack patterns every night until you didn't come back to the temple at all," he explained, irritation clearly showing on his face to Korra.

Korra stepped forward and frowned at Sasuke, a bit of her anger back. "Well…then why don't you do something to help me fix them?" she demanded.

"Like what?"

Thankfully, Korra's brain came up with a response fast enough that her anger wasn't set off course, and get moved forward again to get right in Sasuke's face. "Then we do this every day, every morning until I don't have to worry about some chi blacker getting in my face!"

It was then that she realized that she was right in Sasuke's face, inches away from his. Time seemed to stand still…

"_Do it, kiss him hot and passionately on the lips, DO IT NOW_!" a little version of Korra surrounded by fire yelled from her place on the Avatar's shoulder.

"_No_!" her inner water bender screamed as it appeared._ "You're all hot a sweaty, wait till everything's perfect, THEN make out with him._"

Then her inner earth bender chimed in. "_Screw that_! _Grab his shirt, pull him into your arms, and shove your tongue down his throat_! _Show him you're the one in charge_!"

…

…

…

_Oh I guess no Airbending means no air bender Korra advice_, she realized.

… and then Sasuke spoke before he turned around and walked away. "Okay. Pema said she wanted to take me into town for something today. I'll see you when I get back."

Korra could only stand their silently while she watched her chance to finally get somewhere with a guy disappeared.

"_MORON_!" the three embodiments of the bending philosophies yelled inside her head.

The days of the week blurred together with Korra's attendance at press conferences, hand to hand training followed by bending training, an afternoon of sleep, and then more Equalist hunting. It made her miss the days of training in the Pole. At least back then, she had time to be her own person. In Republic City, everything was always Avatar training or Avatar duties.

It really hit Korra just how out of the loop she was with everything when she came into the air temple one day after training to find Katara talking to Pema. Exhaustion even kept her from noticing the old woman until the was right behind the Avatar. When Katara raised her hand in greet, Korra jumped back and let out a yell of surprise.

"GAH!" Korra screamed as her mind registered the woman's presence and she jumped back in surprise. "Ka-Katara…what're you doing here?"

"Well, you did send for me," she reminded Korra. "Something about a boy who lost his bending?"

_The letter, I completely forgot we sent for Katara to come and look at Bolin_, she thought before smacking herself in the face. "Okay, I'll just go get Bolin. He'll be so happy to see you."

"He'll be meeting with us after the party," the old woman informed her.

Korra blinked, her train of thought completely derailed by Katara's words. "Uh, say what?"

Footsteps, rather loud footsteps for someone in an Air Temple, caught Korra's attention, and she looked behind her to see Tenzin dressed in rather elaborate air bender robes and _shoes_ of all things. Real shoes, not the slippers the air benders and the acolytes wore. "The party that Tarrlok is hosting to welcome a hero of the great war to our city," her Airbending master explained. "The man never misses an opportunity to bask in the light of the photographers. Didn't he tell you about it?"

Doing her best not to look stupid, Korra could only mumbled her reply. "Well, he might have mentioned something a few nights ago. I don't really listen to him much when we're coming home."

"As much as I tend to advocate not listening to Tarrlok-" he grumbled before his wife jumped in. "Dear, you should go get washed up and changed. We're expected at Tarrlok's home in about an hour."

_An hour_? Korra thought, a little horrified at the thought. She needed rest, not a bunch of people yakking in her ear about things that would probably make her sleepy even with a full day's rest. _That's something else they need to teach an Avatar, how to go without sleep_.

After giving Katara a polite goodbye, Korra made her way across the compound to the girl's dormitory and got ready for the party. She was pleasantly surprised to find a dress waiting for her in her room; then a little put off over the fact it was from Tarrlok.

The guy seemed okay and all, but after a week with him Korra understood what Tenzin meant when he described the man as a politician. Everything he did just seemed so…fake. The guy always seemed to have a line for everything, and never went anywhere without a herd of his personal paparazzi a block behind to show up at just the right time and take pictures.

Still, he _was_ helping the city by getting rid of the Equalists, so Korra cut him a little slack. Even if the dress he sent her would probably match up with whatever the heck he had on tonight as to make the perfect photo op.

Once she had gotten changed, the Avatar headed outside to find Sasuke walking over from the guy's side of the island in some new clothes that didn't fall into the same five shirt/pants combo the boy had worn _every day_ since coming to Republic City. Instead, he was dressed in a black shirt with a high collar and short sleeves as well as matching pants. A jacket lay across his right shoulder.

Since he didn't have a councilman footing the bill…

"Where'd you get that?" Korra asked.

The question made him adjust the high neck of the suit with a grunt. "Pema took me shopping for clothes when we received the invitation, remember?" he reminded her. "Idiots couldn't get the collar right."

"So, you're going to the party?" she asked.

The man stopped messing with the collar and grit his teeth as he looked away. "Well, she did think you'd need a plus one."

Korra couldn't help but giggle at the sight. The boy's unapproachable demeanor didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on the bother to the vast majority of the world's air benders. If anything, it seemed _she _intimidated _him_. Which still made absolutely no sense to Korra.

The past several days actually training with him had revealed a lot about Sasuke that had previously been unknown to her. Like the fact that whoever had taught him bending had first shown him how to fight without it, and that bending should only be used as a trump card. Even with innovation, bending moves were rather easy to read once someone had a grasp on the style…and Korra remembered Sasuke had watched her for days on end.

Then there was his reactions to anything fun. He just didn't do it. But with the proper amount of coaxing, Korra found herself able to at least get him involved with certain things like playing with the older two air bender kids…or at least stand around in the general vicinity of the children while Korra and the children threw snowballs at each other and tried to tag him every once in awhile.

The other thing was that the guy really did know absolutely _nothing_ about women. She dropped hints, made vague comments, and even ended up in a few risqué positions when they were training…and got nothing out of it. _Nothing_! Not even a stupid raise of an eyebrow to show he was annoyed or thought something was questionable.

But tonight was going to be different.

They were going to a party for crying out loud!

Okay, it was a 'social gala' to welcome Katara to the city, but it was still a party. They'd eat, dance, get close to each other under the night's sky and Korra would finally, _finally_ get somewhere in her love life…which had taken a rather crippling blow since she joined the task force.

"Well in that case, Mr Uchiha, would you like to accompany me to tonight's formal affair," Korra asked, which got her a 'you've got to be kidding me' look for the other boy that only made her giggle a little more. "Oh come on, you can at least play along."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I liked it better when you took offense to me being reluctant." When Korra didn't respond, Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Fine…I'd be…honored to accept the invitation."

The response made Korra smirk. "_Honored_ huh? Geeze you sound like an old man or something," she told him jokingly. "Next time, you might try happy, it works better."

"I'm never happy," he told her evenly before turning towards the temple and walking away.

Korra just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I noticed," she drawled out before looking at the boy's hair.

_Aang fought the restraints that held him down on the table as the man with the orange mask stood over him in the dark room, the clamp on the Avatar's mouth preventing him form even using his breath to knock the man out_.

_The man gazed down at Aang with his odd eye, and the Avatar grit his teeth. All at once, something flowed into him. It was…he didn't know __**what**__ it was, but he knew it was coming from the man with the red eye. A dull ache in Aang's head became a pounding, and then it felt like someone had driven a spike right into his brain_. _He let out a scream, and everything went black_.

_When light returned to his eyes, Aang noticed he was in a different position. He was still clamped down to a table. Only this time, he was laying with his chest on the metallic surface, and his head resting in an oval that had been cut out of the surface_.

"_I trust you can understand me now_?" _the man in the mask's voice echoed in his ears_.

_Aang gasped_, _or tried to. It was rather difficult with the gag still in his mouth_. _It wasn't just that he heard the man speak, it was the language. It wasn't something Aang had ever heard, and yet he understood the meaning behind the words all the same_.

"_What?… Who are you_?"

"_I'll take that as a yes_," _the man said. Aang felt the man slide his finger along the Avatar's back, coming to a rest on his lightning burn scar that Azuela had given him many years ago_. "_Try to hold still, surgery on a chakra gate is rather delicate_. _I don't really care if you lose the use of your legs, but I'm betting that you do_."

Korra blinked when she noticed that she was staring at the ground, supported by a pair of arms. From the looks of things, someone had caught her when the memory had nearly made her loose consciousness.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

Sasuke's words informed her just who kept the girl from falling flat on her nose and probably breaking the cartilage on the stones below. "Yeah, I just…that was weird."

"Hm?"

After pulling herself up, Korra rubbed her temple. It wasn't fair that Aang's headache had become her own. "Nothing, just one of those Avatar memory things," she explained. "I…I'll be fine. Just need some aspirin."

"We'll take some with us, it probably isn't going to be the first headache you'll be getting tonight," he told her.

The statement made Korra blink. "Wait… Please don't tell me that was some kind of attempt at humor."

Sasuke's eye twitched, telling her that it indeed _was_. "No."

"Good," Korra replied. "Because it _sucked_. You got a long way to go before you can just make humorous observations." Once the splitting pain in her brain had dulled a little, Korra looked her…sort of date over with a frown. "You could have at least cut your hair."

"My hair's fine."

The statement of false fact gave Korra an irritated twitch in her left eye. "It's down to your _shoulders_! You haven't cut it since I found you at the South Pole for crying out loud!"

"Come on, we're going to miss our ride."

-Tarrlok's Estate-

The social gala of the decade was everything Korra had thought, and feared, it would be. The second her party was announced, everyone clapped and swarmed over both her and Katara. While the old water bender seemed to be able to make her way though the people with ease and get out of conversations after just a few words, Korra found herself shackled to the most boring, fake, and utterly pointless people for what seemed like hours at a time.

As she had expected, Tarrlok was dressed in a jacket that went with Korra's dress so well they might as well have been cut from the same cloth…which they probably were. But he did manage to navigate her away from the sycophants after finding her.

But, there were some people that even Tarrlok couldn't avoid…

One of such people was a mustached man with glasses dressed in extreme modern clothing of a buttoned up coat and shirt that didn't hint at any nation of origin with its reddish-brown coloring. However, Korra found herself excited to meet this man once he had been introduced.

"This is Hiroshi Sato, Republic City's most famous industrialist," Tarrlok said.

The man smiled at the introduction and bowed his head to Korra. "And may I also introduce my daughter Asami," he said before stepping aide to wave a girl and the guy on her arm over.

"It's so lovely to meet you, Mako's mentioned he knew you," she said.

The guy on her arm needed no introduction.

"Mako?" Korra asked, extremely dumbfounded by his appearance, both in the way of his clothes and the fact he was at a party like this one. "But, it…you…_how_?" While athletes were pretty respected, this hoity affair seemed _way_ above the man's pay grade.

"Asami ran over him on her moped, now they're dating," Bolin volunteered, zipping in with a plate full of food. "Have you guy seen the spread here? They even have guys walking around with food and drinks."

Looking at the brother's, Korra realized that she hadn't seen hide nor hair of them for days. And seeing Mako with Asami on his arm…Korra felt…oddly relieved? _What_? the Avatar asked herself. _Did you honestly think that a hot young sports star was going to stay single for more than a week when he was done with pro-bending_?

The fire bender nodded to the other guy who could fling flames around. "Sasuke. I see you're out of jail."

Sasuke sighed and looked around at the party. "Unfortunately."

Apparently sensing the mood, Tarrlok called over another one of his guests and made Korra wonder if he had lost his mind in the process. "Ah Chief Beifong, I believe you and Avatar Korra have already met."

_The woman's not even out of her armor_, Korra thought while she got an icy stare from the green-eyed police chief.

"Avatar," Lin greeted with open hostility. She took one look at the people assembled, then moved her gaze back to Korra. "Judging by your company…planning another murder tonight?"

"Lin, I thought that was you!" The group parted as Katara walked up with Tenzin and his wife in tow. Pema was holding Meelo's sleeping form over her shoulder.

Thankfully, the woman's anger seemed to take a back seat to her social skills when Katara came around. Then, the old woman nodded to Tarrlok and was introduced to the Satos. She made a little small talk with the bending brothers, and turned her attention over to Korra's date. "So, Tenzin tells me you want to see the giant lion turtle Aang met once."

"Yes well…the oldest creature in the world…it would be interesting to see," Sasuke replied, not seeming all that interested in the thing.

Katara frowned at the statement. "The oldest…well, I don't think the lion turtle could be called the _oldest_ _creature_ in the world."

_That_ caught Sasuke's attention. "_What_?" he demanded in a harsh whisper.

Tarrlok cleared his throat. "Oh my I'm parched, anyone for a drink?" he asked before motioning over one of the men carrying a tray full of champagne fresh from the back that had just come out with several of his co-workers.

As soon as he guy got to them, Sasuke cocked his eyebrow at the man. "We're underage."

"I'm on duty," Lin told him.

Hiroshi looked at the glasses, almost fearfully. "I uh, I'm afraid I haven't had a taste for the stuff since my wife passed away."

On the edge of hear vision, Korra could see Asami lean in close to whisper something to Mako she wouldn't have heard unless she had been paying attention. "Ex-alcoholic."

"I'm a monk," Tenzin replied.

"Pregnant," Pema told him while patting her stomach.

Katara shook her head. "I don't drink."

"Yes well…if you please excuse me, I must be getting to my duties as host," Tarrlok told the mismatched group before escaping with a drink in his hand. He moved through the crowd, and disappeared for a few minutes before reappearing on the stairs at the back of the room.

"Welcome everyone to my home, and a special welcome to Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, who we are here to welcome back to Republic City," Tarrlok announced before tipping his head towards the older woman. "You know, I can hardly imagine what this city would be without this woman. A member of the council, a mother to a councilman, the wife of an Avatar…I have to say that no one woman has ever done more than Katara. So, as a member of the new generation that you passed the burden and _privilege_ of carrying on this piece of her legacy to, allow me to say thank you, and compliment you on your wonderful job. I can only hope to aspire to your example."

Finally, the man raised his glass to the woman, and took a drink, with the rest of the room doing the same. Then, the people went back to talking amongst themselves.

_And they say I'm bad at public speaking_, Korra thought to herself. _Maybe just giving other people credit isn't in Tarrlok's nature_. After working with the guy for a few nights and always being the one standing in the background during the media's congratulations despite the fact Korra usually led the charge, she knew he was a limelight hog. _But to be like this when giving credit to someone like Katara…_

Korra's thoughts on the matter were ended when Ikki made her way into the center of their little group, dragging her older sister behind her. "Daddy, daddy, Jinora's acting weird."

"Hm?" The air bender looked away from a private conversation with Pema, and down at the children. "What're you talking about-" he stopped talking when he saw the empty glass in the older girl's hand. "Jinora! Have you been _drinking_?" her father demanded.

Fighting to keep upright, the eldest of the air bender children looked up at her father with half-laden eyes. "Just…one, for…Gran-Gran's…toast." Then, the girl collapsed on the floor.

"JINORA!" Pema shrieked before she bent down to try and grab her daughter, or tried to at least thanks to her pregnancy and other child in her arms. Tenzin was the one to pick her up, then took them back towards the kitchens to avoid causing a scene, with all but the Satos and Mako following along.

On their way out, Korra couldn't help but think it was a little creepy that the party-goers weren't taking an interest in the unconscious child. Once they were in the hallway, both Korra and Katara were immediately looking the girl over while someone closed one of the double door behind them to give the family a little privacy.

Bolin rubbed his chin. "Yeah…uh, I don't think champagne is supposed to get you passed out drunk after one glass."

"It's not just her," Sasuke said in a serious tone, his head turned towards the open door to the ballroom.

Korra looked up from the kid, and into the ballroom. The scene made her gasp. Everyone in the room was stumbling around, clutching their heads and trying to stay on their feet. The only exception being a few of the older guests, Mako's group, and the servers that had been carrying the drinks that were now moving towards the windows and doors.

"I'm guessing the drinks were poisoned," he surmised.

At the startled gasps of Jinora's parents, Katara was quick to add, "She's not unconscious, just…I'm not sure," the woman said after examining the child. "Jinora dear, blink if you can still hear me."

When the girl did as instructed between labored breaths, Pema sighed in relief. "Thank goodness."

"Thirty to forty seconds," Sasuke mumbled, getting Korra's attention, "and judging by everyone else's reaction…" He looked around the room at the people falling over and the few still fighting to stay on their feet. And no one's unconscious, so…"

"If I had to guess, I'd say your daughter just drank a muscle relaxant strong enough to bring down a grown man," he explained. "Considering her size, its probably why she collapsed first and can barely move while everyone else is just having trouble standing."

Tenzin looked down at the little girl in his arms for a moment, then back up to the boy. "Then, she'll be alright?"

The question got a disturbed sigh from Sasuke as he looked away from the man. "I'm nowhere near an expert, but…" From his expression, Korra could tell the news wasn't going to be good. "It depends on the dose. Either she'll just have a hard time breathing for the next few hours, or her heart will be unable to pump enough blood to the rest of her body and she'll die."

A chill ran down Korra's spine at the news. "You can't be serious," she whispered.

"And just how does someone like you know so much about poisons?" Lin demanded quietly with a dangerous scowl.

"So-called ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please."

Korra blinked at the unfamiliar voice, then looked back in at the room. One of the servers was now standing on the top of the stairs where Tarrlok had been standing just moments before. Just looking at the man gave Korra weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was something…unnatural about him.

"Allow me to introduce a special surprise guest for this evenings festivities," he said loudly before two small round balls dropped to the ground and exploded to create a cloud of smoke. A second later, the smoke was gone and a man in a hooded coat wearing a mask with a red circle on its forehead was standing in the server's place.

Korra easily recognized him from Bolin's descriptions, the wanted posters, and the more accurate flyers that Equalists handed out on the street as well as he banners in the chi blocker training centers.

"You'll have to pardon the display. I always did like a touch of theatricality in my entrances," Amon said as he stood over the barely moving crowd.

If anything, the weird feeling Korra felt radiating from the man only increased. It was almost as if she could _feel_ waves of rage and hatred coming from the man with the hood on.

"Was that…no, I didn't see any movement in or out of the smoke," Sasuke mumbled from behind the girl with his eyebrows narrowed in thought.

"Daddy, I'm scared," Ikki whimpered.

"AMON!"

The attention of everyone in the room was taken off of the terrorist leader, and towards the boy with the golden eyes standing near the center of the room. Mako stepped forward and drew back a punch, but didn't see the chi blocker behind him throw out a hand. Thanks to the distance, Korra couldn't see the thin wire the man wrapped around Mako's wrist, but its effects were evident when the fire bender was yanked off his feet to land on his back.

"Now, if there are no other interruptions?" the masked man asked before putting his hands behind his back.

Korra started to step forward, but she found herself held back by Katara. "What're you doing?" the younger water bender whispered. "We need to do something!"

In response, Katara shook her head, then looked at the group before she turned her attention back to Korra. Think before you act girl," Katara told her. "This man knows what he's doing. This room has no easy access to water, or earth, and throwing fire around in a room where people can barely move is just asking for trouble.

"At the moment, we need to get my grandchildren and daughter-in-law to safety," she said before looking over to Lin. "How long will it take for you to get a police unit over here?"

Lin frowned. "Once I get to a phone? Five minutes or less, and I can have every airship in the city on top of this place in an instant."

The old woman looked over to Sasuke. "Do you know if this poison of theirs is treatable?"

"No, I know about poisons, not how to counter them," he explained simply, getting him a glare from Lin.

"You must know something," Pema begged, adjusting the child in her care that was thankfully still asleep.

Katara held her hand up to calm the frantic woman. "It's alright. If this toxin works the way Sasuke says it does…I might be able to keep Jinora alive until it wears off. But we need to get out of here first."

"Okay, so what do-"

Korra's question was cut off by someone shouting from inside the main room. "Amon, what're you doing here?" Hiroshi Sato demanded. A brave action considering the man didn't seem the fighting type.

She peeked back through the half-open double doors as the man moved down the stairs. "A room full of the city's bending elites, all of the councilmen, and every single air bender in the world?" the masked man asked. "What better place to spread equality is there?

"Tonight, I shall rid this city of it's oppressive upper class in a single blow," Amon shouted. "It's almost ironic that this was all possible because you fools ignored the actions of-"

Katara turned the group's attention away from the ballroom. "It's good to see megalomaniacal maniacs still like to make long speeches," she said. "We can get out of here before he actually notices we're gone. Boy, take my granddaughter from my son, would you?"

Bolin blinked when the old war hero addressed him. "What? Uh, not that I mind, but, why me?"

"This was the only door the Equalists aren't bothering to guard," Sasuke told him. "And they're all dressed like waiters…so take a wild guess where the rest of them are." As if to nail the fact home, seven men in chi blocker uniforms came out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

However, the chi blockers didn't interest Korra at the moment. "We can't just leave Amon in there with all those people!"

"Agreed," Tenzin added while he handed Jinora off to Bolin. "Since there hasn't been an air bender other than my father and myself in a hundred years, I doubt Amon and his goons will be ready to fight one. I'll stay here and buy time for you to get out of here with the kids."

Pema took in a breath. "Tenzin no!"

"I'll stay, chi blockers can't hurt me in my armor," Lin volunteered.

The monk shook his head. "No, I may be a councilman, but the chief of police can rally the troops faster than anyone from the government. You need to get your men down here."

Korra took a second to look back out at the room. She could still feel the wrongness coming from the masked man. To be honest, it scared her even more than when she had heard him on the radio. Still, she managed to swallow her fear all the same. "I'll stay too."

"Korra!"

She shook her head at Tenzin's words. "I'm the Avatar Tenzin, this is my job. Besides, there's plenty of water left in the punch bowl for me to get off an attack, and considering Tarrlok's a water bender, he's got to have pipes running all through his house, not just the bathrooms. I just have to blow one open with lighting and I'll have a source for my bending."

"If you're all done talking, I think it's time for us to get going," Sasuke said as he made his way to the front of the group and turned his back against the side of the hallway to lower his profile. "Lin, I'll lead the charge, you keep any of them from getting behind me, and hold off any other men that come up behind us once everyone passes the kitchen."

The police woman stepped up behind him. "And you're supposed to be the one in charge here?" she asked in her usual gruff manner.

"Just keep your mouths shut and run out the hole in the wall," Sasuke told everyone behind him, ignoring Lin's comment. "And considering the circumstances, I really don't want to hear you people whining if one of these guys ends up dead."

Pema raised an eyebrow. "Ikki, close your eyes dear."

He held out his hands like a pair of claws, then looked over at them with a frown. "Geeze, I can't believe its been so long I actually need to make hand signs to focus this jutsu."

_Technique_, Korra's mind supplied, leaving her in a state of confusion.

Sasuke clapped his hands together in rapid succession so fast his arms seemed to disappear in a blur before he held out his arm again. A second later, lightning blazed in his hands, completely dumbfounding the Avatar.

"What the hell?" Korra yelled. She looked at the crackling electricity in complete confusion. _That's impossible…you can't HOLD LIGHTNING_!

Keeping lighting stationary went against _everything_ she had ever learned when it came to the stuff. It was creating by separating and the Yin and Yang elements of a person's chi and letting them slam back together. Then the power released by the collusion had to be guided and released. If someone didn't release that power, it would flow back into their heart and kill them.

Before she could ask just how the hell he was doing the impossible, Sasuke disappeared in a blur of motion that moved from chi blocker to chi blocker and crashed into the wall on the far end of the hallway before there was a bright flash and an explosion rang in Korra's ears.

_Wait a second_, Korra thought as she replayed the last five second in her mind. _That's_…

"_All bending fighting styles are mid-range, to long-range combat…once someone gets within five feet of you, like someone who uses close quarters combat, you pretty much don't know what to do_," Sasuke's voice echoed in her head.

Korra frowned. "No wonder he always acted so damn superior. He has a freaking bending style that works in close quarters combat!"

"Well, that's our cue," Tenzin told Korra before he kicked open the door to the main room and walked inside.

"Come along everyone," Lin said as she had everyone else running towards the new exit.

Korra turned her back on the hallway and followed Tenzin into the large room. Apparently while Amon had been making his speech, the poison had been doing its job on the party goers, who were now barely able to crawl around on the floor.

Amon's men were tying people up and setting them on two side of the room. Since Mako and the Satos were separated, Korra was guessing one half held benders, and the other half held non-benders.

The masked man turned his attention towards Korra, and she felt that familiar feeling of being kicked in the gut as he glared at her. "So, are you done trying to save the rest of the air benders?" he asked.

"Trying?" Korra grumbled as she glanced back to the hole in the wall, then saw Tenzin's family standing outside, surrounded by several more chi blockers then had been inside. "Crap."

Tenzin charged the man and threw out his hands to blast a concentrated gale towards Amon. For his part, Amon turned sideways to limit his profile, then thrust out an empty palm towards Tenzin. There was an explosion of compressed air that blew the man's coat around, ruffled the curtains, and sent some of the chi blocker waiters ducking for better footing, but Amon remained unmoved, and unharmed.

"Is that it?" Amon asked.

The exchange left the air bender dumfounded. "What? How did you…"

_Okay, don't think about that right now_, Korra told herself before she looked up at the ceiling. The Avatar threw her hands and water bending abilities out in a wide net, then tried to pull every bit of water in the vicinity above her down. She heard a pair of creeks to her right and left, then separated her chi and went through the steps for weaving lightening. A second later, she s rewarded with a lighting bolt from each hand.

The attack tore through the wood, and Korra pulled at the water in the pipes again, being rewarded with a light shower of water coming from above. _Not much, but I suppose it's enough_.

She wove her hands to pull the water down towards her, then collected it in a sphere above her head and hurled it at Amon, freezing the tip water as the movement turned it into a spear shape. Amon jumped to the left to avoid the attack, and Korra turned the ice drill tipped water serpent around to make another pass at Amon, who dodged it by jumping to the right.

With the masked man now surrounded by water on both sides, Korra collected more water that had from the pipes and sent it careening at him in all directions. She closed her hands together and the water hit the man from all around him, trapping Amon in a ball of water before Korra stopped all movement, and froze the liquid solid.

"Got you!" Korra shouted before dropping her arms, and letting the ice ball fall to the floor. "Now, everyone else give up, and I'll let Amon out before he suffocates!"

Everything was silent as Tenzin walked up to stand beside Korra. He looked at the criminals surrounding them with a worried look on his face. "They don't seem like a group of men who just saw their leader defeated."

A crack resounded throughout the room, and Korra's head whipped back around to look on as the ice ball exploded outward, and Amon stood up from a crouched position.

"Are you kidding me?" Korra whispered.

The ice prison was a move Katara had taught Korra during her Waterbending training. She had originally invented the move during the war in a fight with some fire bender during the day when Sozen's Comet had passed overhead. Over the years Katara had refined it into one of the most effective water bending techniques to subdue an opponent; she even bragged once about how she added a bit of artistry to it, making the perfected form look like the glacier Aang had been frozen in. The technique stopped all movement within. Even a fire bender hadn't been able to escape when they were said to be one hundred times as powerful as they normally were.

But Amon had just _shattered _it while trapped _inside_, and he couldn't even bend!

"Hey Tenzin, if you've go some super secret bending move that sucks the air out of his lungs or something, now would definitely be the time to use it," Korra told her teacher.

But Tenzin could only disappoint her. "Sorry, I'm afraid my father didn't show me anything like that."

"So, is it my turn now?" Amon asked, almost smug.

Korra did wonder why he hadn't attacked already, but she didn't waste too long on those thoughts.

_No choice then_, the girl told herself. Korra thrust her hands forward to shatter the ice surrounding Amon into deadly sharp shards, then clasped her hands together again to send the ice flying towards the man in the center.

"Wha-Korra no!" Tenzin shouted, seeing what she had done and reached out his hands to stop her a second too late.

Hundred of tiny shards of ice assaulted him from every direction. While a strong fire bender might have been able to melt the ice before it reached him, or an earth bender could have risen walls in defense to stop the attack, Amon didn't have any bending to call on. To someone like him, the move was fatal.

All he could do was dodge, parry, jump and spin around as he worked to shatter the pieces of ice one by one…until the attack was finished, and he was left standing in the center of the mass of ice…completely unharmed. While there were some holes in his coat here and there, the man himself didn't have a single drop of blood falling to the floor.

Korra had to fight to stay on her feet, the impossibility of such a feat nearly crushing her spirit completely. "But…that's…how did he…" she whispered.

"I see," Tenzin mumbled, his eyes narrowing a moment after the rather awesome display. "That's very…unfortunate, Amon. I'm sorry for your loss."

Korra looked over to Tenzin. "Huh?"

In response, Tenzin motioned his chin towards Amon. "Look at his mask Korra. Notice something wrong with it?"

The question was thankfully confusing, and Korra looked over to Amon, really studying him for the first time. The mask didn't seem to be all that special, and was probably made from a cheap substitute instead of real porcelain. It had a weird white and tan color scheme, with a big red circle at the top and black coloring around the eye holes…

_Wait a _second, Kora thought as she narrowed her eyes and examined the black part more closely. Then, she noticed it. The mask covered his whole face. "There's no eye holes," she said. "But…how can you _see_?"

"Remember Amon's first broadcast?" Tenzin reminded her without taking his eyes off the man. "He said a fire bender had 'taken his face' I believe those were the exact words. Anyone who'd been scarred like that…I doubt they would have much in the way of vision."

Amon started to move forward on them. "Oh, I see more than you could ever imagine. For instance, the despair that the two of you are drowning in. I was a little hesitant to go up against an air bender at first, but if all you can do is throw around gusts of wind…I think I'll to go on the attack now."

Tenzin summoned up anther gale and launched it at the man, who simply crouched low, and remained in place despite being hit with a wind strong enough to send him flying into the sky even with the way he was standing.

When Amon moved, it was in a burst of speed Korra could barely follow. If not for her training in hand to hand combat, she probably wouldn't have even seen him coming at all. Korra jumped back to avoid the hand that lashed out at her, but Tenzin wasn't so lucky. Amon caught him right in the chest, then proceeded with two more strikes to his stomach before he spun around to strike Tenzin on his back as the man stumbled back.

Tenzin flew through the air, not by his own volition, and landed in the middle of the reception hall. He let out a groan and tried to rise, then coughed violently and fell to the floor. A moan told Korra he was still alive, but that was all it seemed he could do.

Then Amon came at her. His first strike came at her head, which she managed to block, but as soon ass he did Korra nearly doubled over from a palm strike to her stomach that Amon had launched at the same time. _The attack to my head…was a feint_? Korra realized much too late.

She almost fell down, but Amon struck both of Korra's shoulders at the same time with knife jabs before drawing his hands back and giving a final blow with both palms that knocked Korra through the air in a similar fashion to Tenzin before she hit the ground rolling to try and lessen the damage and ran into the wall.

Korra struggled to stand up, and got to her knees before the pain made Korra use her hands to catch herself to keep her face from smacking into the ground. Then, Korra felt something well up in her throat and she coughed a few times before red bile was forced out of her mouth.

_I_… The Avatar's vision wavered, and she willed herself to focus. _I'm bleeding internally, from __**that**_? A few slaps to the stomach had her coughing blood?

_Get up_, Korra told herself, fighting off the pain and blurred vision. _GET UP_! She sucked in a breath of air, and forced herself to stand.

"My, you can still move after that?" Amon asked from across the room.

Then, he was in front of her again. Korra didn't have him to react before his fingers dug into her arms and sent a wave of pain along her muscles. A second later he struck her legs, and the Avatar fell to her knees. She started to fall forward, but Amon's boot propped up against her shoulder, and pushed her back up against the wall.

"Well, if we don't have any further interruptions…it's time to start with the equalizing," Amon said.

She tried to raise her arms, but a wave of crippling pain from her biceps and shoulders stopped Korra from going anything other than bending them at the elbows, and her legs might as well of been jelly.

All she could do was lay back and watch as Amon brought his hands together, and drew them apart, then clapped them together again, and again, and again another time.

_Wait a second_… Korra thought, thinking of the signs the man's hands made when he brought them together as Amon's fingers started to glow. "That's just like…"

_-_Outside-

A second after he crashed through the wall, Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan and glanced around. Not far off to his left, the catering vans parked near the kitchen's back entrance let out half a dozen men dressed in the same attire of the men he'd left on the floor inside.

By the time they moved to halfway surround him, Lin and the others had caught up. "Stopped to check how many of the people trying to beat us up I killed?" he asked with a smirk.

"Don't be foolish," the policewoman responded. "Although, I don't think the last two will be getting up anytime soon."

Sasuke took a second look back in the hallway at the last two goons he's gotten past. Most of their upper torsos were missing where he struck them with his Chidori. "In my defense, I needed the extra power to blow a hole in the wall, and didn't know how long it'd take to build up."

"Well I'd ay you've got a good self-defense argument…I'd go with that when it comes time for your hearing," Lin told him. "I'll be happy to back you up on that one."

The ridiculous statement brought a smirk to Sasuke's mouth. "With everything that's going on, you're sill going to drag me to court over this?"

Lin frowned at him. "It's the law boy."

"Inflexible and unmoving no matter what huh?" Sasuke asked. He continued without waiting for a response. "You remind me of an idiot I used to know… I think I might actually start to respect you if this keeps up."

Lin cut the banter short as she studied the six men in front of them. "How many do you want?"

"Seeing as how we need to make this quick?" Sasuke asked before he brought his hands together for a fire jutsu. "I'll kill the four in the middle, then go after the one on the left."

He took in a deep breath, and brought his fingers up below his mouth. _**Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation**_. The gout of flame that Sasuke breathed spread out to become a wall and rushed forward to engulf all of the chi blockers except the two on the end, who managed to get away from the flames.

The men screamed before being consumed by the flames completely.

"Mommy, I smell barbecue," a young boy mumbled.

"Go back to sleep Meelo," Pema told her son.

"I smell barbecue too," Ikki added.

Pema sighed. "Hold your nose Ikki."

"Close my eyes, hold my nose, you know I _can_ hear people screaming," she replied.

Not wasting a second, Sasuke formed the hand signs for his Chidori, then charged one of the last two chi blockers. The man was good, he actually saw Sasuke coming and dove to the right just in time to avoid the lightning while launching an attack of his own. A light strike clipped Sasuke in the shoulder, but the spasm of pain it caused made him stumble.

_What the…_

Sasuke caught himself and spun around, the jumped back. The damaged caused was negligible, but… _There's no way a glancing blow like that should have caused any damage at all_.

Since his back was to the benders, Sasuke activated his Sharingan andcharged the man again. When the chi blocker thrust his hand forward in a punch, Sasuke let the man get within a millimeter of contact to see what he needed to, then attached one of his feet to the ground to help counteract his own momentum as he spun around the man and twisted the captured arm while grabbing the other one. After that, he planted his foot on the man's back, and applied pressure to the fighter's forearms.

"Who taught you that little trick?" Sasuke demanded before turning off his Sharingan. "Tell me, or I'll rip off your arms." To help encourage the man a bit, Sasuke pushed down with this foot and pulled back with his arm.

"SASUKE!" Lin shouted. "What do you think you're doing? Let the man go and I'll tie him up."

"It's a chi blocking move boy," Katara informed him. "I've seen and felt them before. They use precise strikes to nerve clusters to disable someone's arms and legs. It can even disrupt a person's bending."

He glowered, then flung the man aside so Lin could bind him. "I'm going to go deal with Amon," Sasuke said before turning back to look inside the ballroom, and saw the mass of water come to surround the man before freezing.

"Well, so much for that," Lin said.

"Hey Miss Katara, uh…the little girl's not looking so good," Bolin called out.

Everyone's attention was drawn away from anything except Jinora, who did look much paler than she had just a minute ago. Katara was immediately by Pema's side as they both looked the girl over. Katara grabbed the girl's wrist, and put a finger to her neck. "I'm not feeling a pulse."

The statement made the pregnant woman go almost as pale as her eldest daughter. "Then do something!" she demanded.

Katara looked around, then sighed. "Put the girl on the ground boy, I'll need her to be completely level if I want this to work." Once Jinora had been put down, Katara knelt over her and placed her hand on the girl's chest before looking up into the sky. "It's not a full moon yet, but I'm not exactly trying to move her whole body either."

"Wait, you mean… you're going to blood bend my daughter!" Pema shouted.

"If you have a better idea of how to get her blood flowing again, please enlighten me," Katara replied.

While the old woman tried…whatever the hell she was doing to the kid, Sasuke looked back up into the ballroom to watch the fight for a few more seconds. Since everyone's attention was on the child, his curiosity got the best of him, and he took a second to glance down at Katara's actions with his Sharingan.

_Oh I get it, she's using her water manipulation on the liquid in the girl's own body_. That, combined with the limited knowledge he got from his years at the academy and simply being around Kabuto for three years while undergoing body enhancement surgeries told him what they were doing, and why it was doomed to fail.

Sasuke looked up at Amon as he dodged through dozens of ice daggers with impossible precision to prove what Sasuke had suspected since seeing the chi blocker's technique, then back down to the little girl on the street.

He sighed, and rubbed his head. "Figures," he mumbled before turning off his eyes and moving towards the concerned group. "That isn't going to work."

Katara looked up at the boy for a moment, a frown on her face. "And you have a _better_ idea?"

Instead of replying, Sasuke got down near the girl's head, and tilted it back before opening her mouth. "You're pumping blood, but there's no oxygen in it. Someone has to breathe air into the girl's lungs before you send it through her body. I'll deal with the breathing, you handle the blood flow after I'm done."

-Inside-

With nothing else she could do, Korra closed he eyes, and waited for the man holding her to take her bending…

…and waited…

… and waited…

Then, she opened her eyes to see the man's hand had stopped inches from her face. It shook, but didn't move any closer. A second later, Amon went flying across the room when a wave of water crashed into him from the side.

She looked over to where the attack had come from, and raised her eyebrows in suprise. "_Tarrlok_?"

The man was standing, panting heavily, but standing nonetheless. Two unconscious chi blockers at his feet decorated the ground at his feet. There was a large red stain on the front of his shirt that he was clutching, but he seemed fine otherwise. And of course, he could move.

"How are you not down on the ground like the others?" Korra demanded.

"I see, you moved the parlaying toxin around in your body, then forced it out a cut you gave yourself," Amon's voice cut in over Korra's confusion. "And the way your stopped my arm… A blood bender, and its not even a full moon. Tell me, are you related to a man named Noatak? Or does some other family also possess that bloodline trait?"

Tarrlok stood there with surprise appearing on his face. "What did you just say?" he mumbled barely loud enough to be heard.

"Well, no matter," Amon responded. "You don't seem to be nearly as skilled as he was. Although I will admit, moving the poisons through your own body without them soaking into anything else was quite a feat."

Korra took her eyes off the scene to concentrate on her own problems. She pulled some of the water that now covered the floor over to her using her fingers, then wrapped her hands in water to begin healing her legs. A sharp stab of pain when she moved her should broke the girl's concentration and caused the water to fall, but she called it back up a few seconds later and got back to work.

_Crap, with my muscles and shoulders hurt like this…I can't heal the higher part of my arms_, the Avatar thought before slowly raising her hands to start on her stomach.

When a cry of pain reached her ears, she looked up to see Amon had gotten to Tarrlok. The water bender bent over, coughing up blood. "You…how did…my bending."

Amon interrupted him before the man could get any further. "You people, you can work your abilities, but you have no idea how your abilities work." He stepped back, and Korra watched as the man's hands blurred, striking Tarrlok several times in his arms and legs before the man fell to the ground.

He turned back towards Korra, and brought his hands together again before his fingers glowed with an odd light, like before. "Now, where were we Avatar?"

Korra got back to her feet, taking stock of herself while she tore her dress down the seams to give her greater mobility. The thing was hardly something meant to fight in. _Fingers, lower arms, and legs._ _That's all I've got to bend with_. Against someone like Amon…it wasn't enough. Nowhere near enough.

He charged forward in a blur, and Korra performed a high roundhouse kick that sent a small wave of flame at the man that that he simply ducked under before lashing out with his hand as if it were a claw…

Korra closed her eyes, tears beginning to form. _No…I can't lose my bending…_

…

…

…

…and got the wind knocked out of her when the man's whole body crashed into stomach. Then something tugged on her dress from behind, and Korra's whole body lurched with motion that left her head spinning as her body was tossed around.

When everything stopped, she was laying on her chest with her arms dangling in the air, and someone had there hands on her legs that were kicking in the air.

When she opened her eyes, Korra looked strait ahead at the…ground? Well, it _looked_ like the ground with the carpet, and Tenzin's unconscious body laying there.

Then, up at the wall that was…above her…while the ceiling with its chandelier attached further down was…behind her?

The realization of her location and fear that followed the confusion made Korra wrap her legs around the person supporting her. Then she asked the weirdest question in her entire life. "Uh…Sasuke, are we standing on a wall?"

"I'm standing on a wall," he corrected her evenly, "you're laying on my back."

Korra blinked, and looked forward at the ground. "Okay…why are _you_ standing on a wall?"

"Because I couldn't hold you and fight at the same time, and these guys haven't been taught to adhere to surfaces," he explained.

Below them, Korra watched as a chi blocker looked up at the pair while another ran over to the middle of the room where Amon was laying facedown on the ground…with a short stick of some kind sticking out of his back…that seemed to be sparkling.

"Can you do something about those two?" Sasuke asked. "I can't let go to attack, or you might slip off."

The reminder made Korra look down at her thighs that Sasuke was holding, and brought a blush to her cheeks when she realized just how close he was to touching her butt. _Hell, he probably had been just to get us up here_, she realized. Not to mention there was the fact her dress was torn and the guy looking up at Korra had a clear view of her underwear. "Well, I can't move my shoulders…but from this angle, I guess I don't really have to," she realized.

Korra wiggled her fingers to collect the water still on the ground into a mass big enough to be used in the attack she needed outside the chi blocker's line of sight, then flung the glob of liquid to cover his head and quickly froze it. The man beat at the ice for a moment, then fell to his knees and finally to the ground. Once he was unconscious, Korra melted the water to let him breathe.

"Hurry and get the other one!" Sasuke told her.

After looking at the man's location, crouching next to Amon, Korra shook her head. "I can't without moving my upper arms."

The chi blocker reached forward and pulled out the glowing metal stick from his leader's back.

Sasuke clenched his teeth. "Damnit!"

He started to move, but Korra urged him to stop. "Wait, laying down like this…I can reach my biceps and shoulders. Just stand still for a minute," she told him before pulling the water up to her and getting to work on healing the rest of her injuries.

As the healing energies washed over her, Korra couldn't help but be amazed at how the atmosphere had changed so quickly. One moment, she had been so scared she could hardly breathe, but now…

"A hairpin?" Amon's voice cut through the air. "You disabled my nervous system with a FUCKING HAIRPIN?" Down on the ground, the man snapped the object in question in two.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "How are you still alive? Even a blunt object like that should have severed your spine you after I charged it with my Chidori and hit you where you couldn't see it coming."

The word made Korra blink. "What do birds have to do with anything?" she asked.

Sasuke took a moment to give her an odd look, then turned his attention back to Amon when the man spoke again. "How did you-"

"Your goons release a small burst of chakra when they attack an opponent, it's not much, but it's enough to disrupt people whose chakra system is underdeveloped as a bender's. Then there was the time when Korra's multi-directional attack didn't work. The only way someone would have been able to do what you did is if they had a field of vision that covered all three-hundred and sixty degrees…excluding that blind spot above your third thoracic vertebra where I hit you."

Amon stood silent for a moment before he responded. "That symbol on your back…and that hair… Judging by your age…you must be Itachi's younger brother. Sasuke, wasn't it? What're you doing on this side of the world, you pampered brat? Don't your mommy and daddy miss you?"

Pressed up against him as she was, Korra could feel Sasuke's body tense at the mention of the other person's name. What had been a feeling of safety faded away, and Korra found the unease in the atmosphere begin to rise again. The hands supporting her disappeared, and lighting blazed again.

"YOU CAN ASK THEM WHEN I SEND YOU TO HELL!"

Sasuke simply disappeared from underneath Korra, and the Avatar let out a yelp before she used Firebending to slow her descent and landed safely. A second after she did, an explosion drew her attention and she saw the large cloud of dust in the middle of the dance floor.

Amon jumped out of the dust cloud high into the air, away from the impact. "That's Kakashi's technique, right? Sorry boy, but I'm not stupid enough to go head to head against a mirror wheel eye user who can wield the lighting blade technique."

"You know about me, but not about my clan? When did you leave the village?" Sasuke asked as she clapped his hands together several more times, then took a deep breath to blow out a fire attack. The flames to the shape of a trio of dragon heads the size of the genuine article on their way towards Amon.

The masked man threw out his hands right as the first dragon came close, then somehow slid around the attack before it passed by him with the other two attacks going far to the left and right.

Seeing where this was headed, Korra reached out to gather some water in order to put out the fire the bending attack would cause…only to freeze and stare when the dragons hit the ceiling, tore through the top floor, and kept going until most of the upper eastern side of the house was gone. The water she gathered dropped to the ground.

Since it looked like Sasuke was holding his own, Korra moved to take care of more important business. She ran over to Tenzin, and soaked his body in healing waters. "Tenzin, can you hear me?"

"If you must know, it was right after our _glorious_ leaders decided to murder a man to keep an agreement with lying foreigners," Amon called out from across the room. "Then, that very same man let his own brother take his place to get out of it!

"But why are you here boy?" he demanded much calmer than he was a moment ago. "I doubt very much that the village leaders even know I'm alive. Which means…you've gone rouge as well? Is that it?"

"There's no reason to answer a dead man's questions," Sasuke said as thunder crashed overhead.

A groan came form Tenzin, and Korra looked down at the man. "Tenzin, you there?"

Thankfully, the monk opened his eyes. "Korra? I…behind you!"

Korra spun around just in time to see the chi blocking waiter approaching from her blind spot. She threw out her fists in a fire blast that caught him in the chest and sent him flying. The man screamed, and slid his body along the wet ground to try and smother the flames.

Meanwhile, Korra gathered water over the man's head and froze it before dropping the ice block with enough force to knock the guy out.

With the distraction taken care of, Korra helped Tenzin to his feet and supported the old man by placing his arm over her shoulder. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Uh…" Korra looked over to Amon, then the boy with the red and white symbol on his back.

_Aang looked around the dark room. Finally left alone, he tried to think of how to escape. Firstly, he needed to get a feel of his surroundings beyond the little bit of light provided by a candle placed somewhere behind him_. _He took in a deep breath, then blew out fire._

_The flames illuminated the small room, which looked to be little more than a cave. Aside from the table he was pinned down on, there was a wall with several coffers built into it, each one with a mostly completed red circle above a 3__rd__ of a white circle that had a thick line extending from the bottom_.

"_Ah, you're awake_," _the deep voice said in strange words. Still, Aang __**knew**__ what they meant_.

_Aang cut the flames, then looked up as another light source came closer to his bed_. _The masked man was holding a candle in one of his hands_. "_Who are you_? _What do you want with me_?"

"_You don't know_? _I was told the Avatar could remember his past lives_," _The Mask_ _replied_. "_Very well, you are here for the same reasons that my forebear came to the…Earth Kingdom I think it's called_. _As to your first question…well, that answer is more complicated than you might think. But you may call me…Madara Uchiha._"

Korra shut her eyes and willed the vision away. _What was… _She looked back up at the paper fan symbol on Sasuke's back that matched the one on the walls of that room.

"Korra?" Tenzin asked before the world faded out again.

_The man in the red armor with the long spiky hair walked up to Kyoshi and gazed upon her with his unnatural red eyes, his giant fan with the red and white symbol still on his back. _

"_I am truly sorry its come to this cousin_," _he told her in the language of the four nations_. "_I should warn you. I've undergone a similar process, so I know this will be quite painful_."

_Fear ran through Kyoshi's mind at the prospect of what was about to happen_. _Still, she did her duty and accepted her fate. Then she entered the Avatar state_. "_Let's just get this over with Sir Uchiha_."

The vision ended, and Korra fought to keep on her feet under Tenzin's weight. "I'm fine," she insisted between the pounding aches in her head. _What the hell is all this_? Korra demanded from her other selves.

Why were her past lives giving her visions _now_? Didn't they know a fight was going on? …Or a staring contest at any rate? Amon and Sasuke hadn't actually moved for over a minute now.

"Are you trying to use illusion techniques on me boy?" Amon said. "I should tell you now, it's not going to work. Even if we did see face to face, my white eyes work differently than a normal person's vision. Trying to trap me with sight is a waste of time."

Sasuke raised his hand, and was struck by a lightning bolt. The crackling energy stayed connected to his hand. "No, I was just waiting for the charge in the clouds to build up enough to fuel my attack. This jutsu is called Kirin, and it can't be dodged, blocked, or canceled out."

_Clouds_? Korra asked herself before looking up at the sky. The black storm above them crackled with lightning in an unnatural way. Then, she saw the movement of a strange serpentine creature darting amongst the clouds. "You…you've got to be kidding me."

Amon didn't even move before he spoke. "That attack from before, the dragons that tore through the roof… you were using them to create a rising air current in order to form cumulonimbus clouds?"

An instant later, the shape Korra had glimpsed in the clouds came down to float in the sky above them. It might have been her imagination, but she was certain she actually heard it roar. "Tenzin…I may have to go back to learning Firebending after this…I think I missed the lessons on how to do _that_!"

"I didn't think you _could_," the air bender mumbled in awe.

"YOU CAN COMBINE ELEMENTAL CONTROL WITH SHAPE MANIPULATION?" Amon shouted.

Sasuke motioned his hand forward, as if signaling the creature to attack. "Disappear with the thunderclap."

It really was over in an instant. One moment the lightning construct was just floating there, and next came a bright flash along with a resounding boom that rattled Korra's teeth. When her vision cleared, Korra traced the path of destruction that cut the building in two all the way to Tarrlok's back yard, which was now a big smoldering crater in the ground.

Sasuke le out a sigh, and looked over to Korra as rain started to pour down from the sky on the unprotected party goers. "Are you two alright?"

The symbol on his back, family name, and man in red armor who bore a disturbing resemblance to the boy in front of her were pushed aside for the moment as Korra made her way over to him.

"Fine," she told the boy with dark eyes. _Not red_, Korra told her past lives.

"What in the name of the spirits was all that racket!" Pema shouted as she made her way inside the ballroom with half a dozen of Lin's police force came in before her along with their leader.

Lin immediately started barking orders to her men to start helping the people out of the destroyed house that seemed like it could collapse any moment, then looked over to Sasuke. "Hey, where's my mother's hairpin?"

"Daddy, Daddy! Mommy made me _kiss_ Jinora," Ikki told the older man, then proceed to try and spit the taste of her sister out of her mouth.

Tenzin blinked. "What?" he asked his wife.

"Sasuke did it too!" Ikki added.

"_What_?" Korra asked, completely dumbfounded he looked over at the raven-haired young man, who covered his face with his palm and groaned.

With Meelo in tow, Katara made her way over to the group. Behind her, Bolin was carrying Jinora on his back, who looked tired, but apparently fine. "She's fine just needs some rest."

"And food," Jinora added in a tired voice. "I-"

"Bro!" Bolin shouted before dropping Jinora, who let out a tiny scream when she fell, and ran over to his unconscious brother that had been tied up in the corner next to some of the other benders. "Geeze what is this stuff, metal fishing line?"

"I trust everyone is alright then?"

Korra blinked, then looked over to Tarrlok as he limped over to the group. "Uh…you okay?" she asked.

The man coughed, and waved away the policemen who tried to office him assistance. "I'm fine," he assured her. "You're not the only water bender who can heal themselves Avatar."

_Yeah but…_ The image of Amon standing over her with his arm immobilized flashed through Korra's mind. _He can blood bend without a full moon_, she reminded herself. Just knowing the art was supposed to be illegal. But when it came down to it…the man had saved her bendingwith that skill.

"Well if you can heal, then help me with the wounded," Katara told the younger waterbender. "Most of it doesn't look serious, so it shouldn't take that long."

"Oh very well. But first…" Tarrlok looked over to Sasuke. "I must say that was quite an amazing spectacle, I had no idea that a fire bender could control lightning like that. Tell me, does it have something to do with your eyes changing color?"

"YOU'RE TOO SOFT BOY!"

Korra's breath caught as she felt an ominous force in the air. She looked up, and her mouth dropped open at the sight. A man was standing on the edge of the crater that Sasuke's attack had created, covered in a black aura of energy that seemed to be made of nothing but pain and hatred. The feeling was overwhelming compared to what she had sensed coming from the man before.

As for the man himself, Amon was covered in burnt skin that was slowly returning to a healthy state. Long black hair danced wildly above him every which way, caught in the swirl of his power. Eyes that were indeed white looked at everyone around him, dozens of tiny veins pulsing at their sides while the man's face was twisted into an evil grin. Other than that, the only other thing on his body were two tattoos: the first a green one that consisted of two lines and an X on his forehead, and black tattoo on his stomach of a spiral pattern with squiggles around it.

"Daddy I'm scared again," Ikki whimpered ass he clutched onto her father.

"Me too," Jinora agreed.

"…that makes three of us children," Tenzin mumbled.

"But…you…_how_?" Sasuke demanded incoherently.

Amon laughed at the question. "That attack of yours, if you had simply detonated it on impact, there really wouldn't have been anything left of me. Instead, you had your Kirin push me out of the building and blew it up when we were in an open area. Because of that, I had time to put on my demon cloak."

"That's not what I'm talking about! That's an eight trigrams seal." Sasuke shouted. "BUT YOU CAN'T BE A JINCHUURIKI! THERE AREN'T ANY TAILED BEASTS LEFT!"

Apparently ignoring Sasuke for a moment, Amon brought his hands together. "How little you know of the world boy," the man with the white eyes said. "And don't call my partner a beast, you'll hurt his feelings. Now come out, Hei Bei!"

"What did he just say?" Tenzin whispered.

"Dear, isn't Hei Bei that spirit you said your father…"

Amon's body took on an almost animalistic appearance, with dark circles appearing around his eyes, and his teeth becoming fangs. His fingers growing curled claws, and even the man's hair seemed to grow more wild. The energy around him condensed, and began to bubble as it formed the outline of a bear around Amon, who had gotten down on his hands and knees.

The police that Lin had brought with her charged the spirit-man creature, and were knocked aside when it flung an arm that somehow extended to slash five of them at the same time. Lin crashed into the wall behind all of them, and the rest of her force was laying around what was left of the building. They were injured, and weren't moving.

Sasuke stepped forward. "You should all probably start running away now."

"Good advice, come on bro," Bolin told his brother, who was still pretty out of it, but moving. Pema and led her children out the front door that was the opposite direction from the creature. Tenzin and Tarrlok, who were both in no condition to fight limped after them.

"What the hell is that thing?" Korra demanded as she walked up stand beside Sasuke.

The thing in question was sprouting another pair of arms, and the feeling of oppressive energy Korra felt coming from him doubled while its shape altered, becoming a giant four-armed monster of black and white the size of a one story building.

"Oh, I get it now. It's one of those nature spirits…so they really are nothing more than chakra manifestations," Sasuke said, with a bit of an edge to his voice. "Still, you're nothing compared to the eight and nine-tails. I can't believe I was a little worried for a second there."

Korra smirked at his gallows humor. "Your jokes still suc-" Korra's words caught in her throat when she looked over to Sasuke and saw his eyes glowing red and bleeding. "_What_"

The surrounding temperature shot up in seconds…

"**Amaterasu**."

"**Wha-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!**" The spirit beast screeched in pain as black flames appeared to cover his body in fire that the rain evaporated from before it even touched. It writhed on the ground, spreading the flames on the rugs, the stone, even the dirt seemed to catch fire as the panda creature rolled around in pain, desperately trying to put out the fires covering its body.

When that didn't work, the creature sunk all its claws into the floor, and held its head up to suck in a breath. It lurched forward, and shot a dark sphere of energy at the two benders.

Korra leaped to the left.

Sasuke jumped right.

And the blast sailed through the front wall of Tarrlok's house before it curved upwards and Korra lost sight of it in the night sky.

She spun back around to face the creature…that was laying on the ground and…evaporating?

"Don't bother, the host was in that sphere the beast shot out its mouth," Sasuke explained. "Without its power source, the manifestation just crumbles."

More than a little on edge, Korra whipped her head over to face Sasuke. "You… What… What the hell was that thing?" she shouted while putting up her arms in a guard. _He really __**does**__ have red eyes._

When Sasuke looked at her, Korra couldn't stop herself from flinching from having his eyes trained on her. _Wait a second…they're different_, she realized. The man in red armor had three circles inside his iris connected to the edge of his eyes by a trio thick lines, and the masked man's eyes looked like they had three teardrops circling around the center. Sasuke's looked almost like a flower with a tri-pointed star in the center.

"In this land, you people worship the spirits like gods and turn to them to try and gain power," Sasuke told her. "But in my homeland, it's different. There, what you call gods, we call demons. We shackle and bind these creatures into human bodies, then turn these people in weapons of mass destruction."

Korra didn't know what was more disturbing, what Sasuke said, or the fact that he was able to say it with such little emotion. The shiver she felt run down her back had nothing to do with the freezing cold rain. "What do you mean, where you come from?" she demanded. "I thought you were from the Earth Kingdom, or the Fire Nation. And how are you a black fire bender?"

"You mean you never figured it out? I'm not from your lands," he told her.

"Far to the east of the Earth Kingdom there is a storm that never ends. You people call it The Sea of Storms. But in my homeland, we call it The End of the World, because it surrounds our countries with a nearly impassable barrier of wind, rain, and lightning. That's where I come from."

"And the flames of the Amaterasu are the inheritance of my bloodline." Then, Sasuke closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they had turned back to normal. "So, anything else you want to ask?"

Korra gulped, afraid of the next question on her mind. "You…all this time…you have the same eyes as that man." The inheritance of his bloodline, he had called it. "Do you know him? Do you know what he did to the last Avatar?"

Then Korra took a deep breath as she got to what she really wanted to know. "_Why are you here_?" she demanded in a shrill voice over the sound of the falling rain.

Sasuke held up a pair of fingers in front of him. "Judging by your fear…I'm guessing you already know." A whirlwind of leafs surrounded Sasuke, and the next moment…Korra was standing alone in the ruins of Tarrlok's mansion.

It took her a moment to realize the black flames had also disappeared.

-Air Temple-

Katara walked into the waiting room where her family and Bolin's brother were sitting. After drying her hands, she looked over to the others. "I tried everything I know, but I couldn't restore Bolin's bending," she told them.

"But…you're supposed to be the greatest healer in the world!" Mako shouted as he threw out his hand to point at Katara. "You were supposed to heal him!"

The statement only served to bring Katara down. "I'm sorry. As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with your brother."

Mako stared at the woman for a moment, anger written on his face. He let out a long breath of air and crossed his arms before turning his had away from her. "Sorry, it's just…_nothing_?"

As Boling walked into the room, putting his clothes back on, Katara nodded and returned to looking downcast. "It's ironic. All those years ago when Aang did this to Ozai, and then later Yakome, we all just accepted it and went about our lives. Now, I wish I had taken a look at them. If I had bothered to investigate a severed connection to the elements when I was in my prime, I might have been able to discern how to fix it. But I'm old, and my skills aren't what they use to be."

"There's no need to get yourself so worked up over this mother," Tenzin assured the water bender. "No one could have foreseen-"

"I should have," Katara said. "One day long ago, your father told me where he gained the power to cut off someone's connection to the elements. It doesn't come from being the Avatar, it's an ancient knowledge, so old that one of the oldest creatures in the world was the only thing around who knew how to do it, and the spirits are even older than that. We've seen that Amon truly has a spirit on his side. Such information would have been well within his grasp."

Tenzin scratched his beard. "So, do you think Korra might be able to undo it if she awakens as an Avatar and gains access to the knowledge of her past lives?"

Looking around the room and finding the water tribe girl absent, Bolin scratched the back of his head. "Where is Korra anyway?"

"Out on the island. She wanted to be left alone," Tenzin answered.

The girl hadn't told anyone what had happened after the bending family and the brothers left, but most everyone in the room could easy guess when she came out of the ruins of Tarrlok's house, dragging the unconscious bodies of Lin and Saikahn behind her.

"So…uh, you guys think…"

Bolin's unfinished question was answered by Katara. "The last time I met that spirit, it was kidnapping people because a few trees got burned down," she said. "Now we're in the middle of a place where you can't even see the normal ground except for a few parks. I'm just wondering how its manifesting itself physically away from its totem and at this time of the year. We're still a long time away from the solstice."

"Sasuke seemed to know, he called Amon a… jin-chu-riki? Tenzin asked himself. "It's probably why he's missing, and Korra's still here."

"Poor girl, we really should send someone to speak with her," Pema told them.

-Sato Estate-

Hiroshi Sato had just finished his designs when the door to his office opened to admit his daughter. The man turned off the light shining on his desk to keep the blueprints in the dark, and looked up at the girl. "Asami, is something wrong?"

The girl rubbed her eyes, and covered a yawn. "I was just going to…ahem, I saw the light in your study on and wondered what you were doing up."

"Oh, you know me," he told her. "First it was the adrenaline rush from the party, and then I got an idea in my head, and well…you've heard it all before."

Asami gave him a chuckle. "Anything cool?" she asked before trying to move closer to get a peek.

Acting as fast as he could, Hiroshi stood up to block the girl's way. "Now now dear, you know the rules. No peeking till it's on the market."

In response, the girl let out an annoyed groan, but stopped trying to get closer. "I'm not five anymore dad, I'm not going to doodle on your blueprints."

"Sir, there's a Mr Hyuga here to see you sir. He's waiting in the libary."

The interruption quickly put an end to the conversation, and Asami turned to their nighttime security guard. "Now? It's past ten!"

Hiroshi clamed his daughter down by rubbing her shoulders. "It's alright dear, I had a prior appointment with him. The man's a new investor with a few…quirks. One of which being he's a real night owl. Now, run along to bed, I promise I'll be done here in less than an hour."

Once he had gotten rid of his daughter, Hiroshi made his way downstairs to the library to find a man waiting for him. As soon as they were alone, the man…changed. One moment Hiroshi was looking at a non-descript individual he could have passed on the street without notice, and the next, Amon was standing in the room with him.

"You know, I read in one of the Aang biographies that the Avatar could do that as well." But Hiroshi understood that had been Aang changing into other Avatars, and only for a short time, this man seemed to become anyone he choose. It wasn't a form of bending, Hiroshi was certain of that much, but it was still rather disturbing.

Amon placed his hands behind his back. "Are you calling me an Avatar then?"

"You performed your part well tonight, standing up to me as you did while giving me an opening for my speech," the masked man told him. "Are you certain no one can trace the employees back to you?"

A shake of his head was all Hiroshi gave. The catering company was owned by one of his shell corporations. He had originally used it to help with his tax evasion, although it had become a far more useful tool since the revolution began.

"Unfortunately, that seems that's all that went well tonight," the businessman countered. "We were supposed to take care of everything in one fell swoop. Instead, we've been handed a public defeat and the Avatar has slipped through our fingers.

"And that other boy who nearly killed you…it seemed the two of you knew each other." Although, seeing that boy use lightning in his hand as a weapon had given Hiroshi a new idea for an invention.

Amon raised a hand to silence him. "It makes no matter. I had only planned to use the hostages as a counter balance to the Avatar to ensure she didn't interfere with us any further. But after tonight's performance, I can see she is no real threat to me. It's time to accelerate the plan to its final phase."

"Then…we're taking Republic City?" Hiroshi asked. "We don't have the manpower yet, and I only have one squad of mecha tanks ready for-"

"Republic City?" Amon asked in a confused tone. "That's right, you were from the old Amon's inner circle, weren't you? I'm afraid that plan is nothing but a waste of time."

Hiroshi frowned. "What does that mean?"

In response, Amon crossed his arms, and chuckled. "Noatak was a good man, but his vision was far too limited. He actually thought he could remove bending from the world by doing it one person at a time. Even if every bender in the world lined up for him, the man would be dead from old age before it actually came about. And that's not even putting into account the children that would be born.

"No, my plan is much grand than Noatak's in both size and efficiency. In less than five days, I shall bring about the end of bending."

-Republic City Docks-

"Is my resolve really so weak?"

Sasuke sat on the top of a warehouse, looking across the bay at the air temple on its island. He replayed the scene from earlier that night in his head. After he had seen Amon forming the signs for the Five Element Seal jutsu, Sasuke could have simply backed off and let it happen. Whatever the man claimed, it seemed he couldn't _actually_ take someone's bending away, only seal their chakra network. But Sasuke supposed it would have the same effect on someone who didn't know what was going on.

"I should have just sat back and watched the show."

_But I didn't_, he reminded himself. When Amon came at Korra, he struck the Hyuga in the blind spot that he's learned about as a child when he commented to his father that Hyuga's eyes might have been better than the Sharingan in some ways, and rushed in to save the girl.

"_But why, why did you save me_?" _Naruto asked as he lay on the ground_.

"_My body just_-"

Sasuke banished the unbidden memory to the back of his mind. He wasn't a weak willed child anymore, under the control of Leaf propaganda that was nothing more than a mound of hypocritical shit.

"Enough of this," he grumbled, taking a moment to look at the symbol on his jacket to reaffirm his resolve.

In truth, the past weeks had been nothing but a distraction. _If a pleasant one_, he admitted. But then, this place was full of distractions and falsehoods that had tried to make Sasuke doubt himself.

Sasuke frowned. He needed to speak with Katara. Apparently, the old woman knew something Tenzin didn't. After that, he would be able to rid himself of these fools and continue with his plans.

-Air Temple Island-

It was odd. Despite everything that happened, Republic City looked the exact same as the first night she had seen it from her bedroom. The waves still crashed against the rocks below her, and the stars were still out shinning.

Korra pulled her legs back towards her face, and rested her chin on her knees. _What am I supposed to do_?

She needed to talk to someone about what happened, but once she did the cat would be out of the bag. As it was, people just thought that Hei Bei thing had dragged Sasuke into the spirit world.

But…she didn't know if that would be a good thing to tell someone, or a bad one. There was definitely something weird going on, and it was defiantly connected to what had happened to Aang, and that former Avatar Kyoshi from around two-hundred years ago.

Both Avatars had run-ins with people with the glowing red eyes, and both had ended up…dead.

But…

Memories played through her mind of the past months, of finding Sasuke in the snow, teaching him to read, talking with him, training with him…of him saving her from Amon. If he had wanted to get rid of her, it could have been done easily enough tons of times by now, with no one being the wiser.

Then there was the black fire. It as supposed to burn for _days_, but disappeared before Sasuke had also vanished. Korra knew how to quell flames with Firebending, so it stood to reason that Sasuke could too.

If he had left the black fire going, Republic City would had been gone inside a week.

But on the other hand…

_He watched me for days_, Korra told herself.

He knew her every move, and could now counter every single one of her techniques with nothing more than his hands and feet. What if it was all just some elaborate trick for some devious plan?

He always kept her at arms length after coming to Republic City, despite the fact they could communicate freely. And then there had been that feeling in Tarrlok's home, when he and Amon had spoken to one another. For a moment, the young man had felt just as bad as Amon.

She moaned in despair. _What am I supposed to do_? Korra asked herself. _SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST TELL ME WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO_!

"_Hey, you don't have to yell_."

After letting out a sign, Korra stood up and brushed the new fallen snow off her coat. "Not now Tenzin," she told the man standing behind her, having glimpsed the air bender robes out of he corner of her eye. "I want to be alone."

"_But, you were the one calling for help, remember_?"

Korra looked up, and her eyes widened. The man in front of her was wearing air bender robes, and there was some resemblance, but it was most definitely _not_ Tenzin. "Aang?" she realized.

The spirit of the last Avatar smiled at her, and bowed his head in greeting. "_Hello Korra_."

"But…you…how did I? I've never been able to talk to you before…and there've been plenty of times when I needed to, believe me!"

Aang seemed to chuckle at her confusion. "_Well, I'll agree with you there But…this is the first time you've reached out for help with all your heart_," he explained. "_And I gotta say it's about time, you have no idea how much of a headache it is to send you those visions into that thick skull of yours_!"

The expression on Aang's face and his whiney tone made Korra giggle. "Uh…sorry?" She got herself under control, and became a bit more serious. "But, I get it now. You were trying to warn me about…" She couldn't finish the sentence.

Hesitation crossed Aang's face for a moment, then he looked away from her. "_Well…warn is a little strong. I'd say inform_…_maybe prepare would be better_."

Korra steeled herself what she knew was coming. "So start informing."

Still iffy, Aang looked her over. "_Are you sure you want to know_? _I can promise, it's not going to be good news_."

"_Counting you and every other Avatar in the cycle, we have had three run-ins with people who bear the name Uchiha_," he began.

-Chapter End-

Author's notes: And that's that… the chapter turned out to be much, MUCH longer than I expected to get from one point to the other, and I will admit to making some minor plot changes here and there once LoK ended. Next chapter be the last of the Sasuke book…and maybe a short epilogue, and then we'll begin part 2.

And before you all ask if Avatar version Korra can heal Bolin…you'll just have to wait and see…

And this sentence is to try and put the word count at twenty two thousand, two hundred, twenty two


End file.
